The Autostrada A24, or Strada dei Parchi ("Parks motorway") is an autostrada (Italian for "motorway") 166 kilometres (103 mi) long in Italy located in the regions of Lazio and Abruzzo connecting Rome to Teramo, near the Adriatic Sea.[1] Starting from the Grande Raccordo Anulare (GRA – the Rome orbital motorway), the A24 runs broadly north-east across the Abruzzese Apennine Mountains. Between L'Aquila and Teramo it passes through the 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) Gran Sasso Tunnel. The private company Strada dei Parchi S.p.A. currently manages the motorway. The name "Parks Motorway" comes from the fact that the Maiella National Park, the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park and the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park can be reached from this motorway. It is a part of the E80 European route.
Near the Lazio and Abruzzo border the Autostrada A25 splits from the A24 and reaches the Adriatic Coast at Pescara.
It is constructed in an almost completely hilly and mountainous territory with a complex orography. For this reason, the motorway required the adoption of daring civil engineering solutions, with extensive stretches utilising viaducts[1] and 42 tunnels (four of which are longer than 4 kilometres (2.5 mi)) including the Gran Sasso Tunnel, whose length (10.174 kilometres (6.322 mi) for the northern tunnel, 10.175 kilometres (6.322 mi) the southern) made it the longest double-tube road tunnel in Europe, as well as the longest road tunnel in Italy entirely in the national territory.
First planned in 1973 to connect Lazio and Abruzzo as well as the Autostrada A1 and the Autostrada A14, the motorway ends at Teramo, about 17 kilometres (10 mi) far from the Autostrada A14, This gap is covered by a freeway since the early 2000's.
The highway includes three long tunnels under the highest Appennine mountain, the Gran Sasso massif, on a south west/north east axis, with each tunnel just over 6.3 miles in length. Two of the tunnels are part of the Traforo del Gran Sasso, while the third tunnel, dug adjacent the two highway tunnels, hosts the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (National Laboratories of the Gran Sasso), the largest underground particle physics laboratory in the world.
Together with the A25, it provides a fast and reliable connection between the capital and the central-eastern regions of the peninsula; previously, the natural subdivision imposed by the highest peaks of the Apennines had made travel between the two seas difficult, slow and treacherous. The A24 reduced the isolation of Abruzzo from the Tyrrhenian regions, and together with the A25 became the main link between the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic in central Italy. Until its completion, communications took place mainly via the winding State roads Salaria, Flaminia and Tiburtina Valeria.
A24, a film company based in the United States, is named after the Autostrada A24. Daniel Katz, the founder of the company, chose this name because he decided to create the company while driving on the A24.[2]
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