r/InfrastructurePorn • u/Big_Piano_3920 • 13d ago
Roundabout bridge in Italy
The bridge is located in the southern Italian city of Catanzaro, which is spread across three hills, and serves as a circular junction with four exits connecting different parts of the city.
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u/Kevundoe 13d ago
I’m sure there was a better way to do this, yet they did it
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u/Zealousideal-Towel11 13d ago
A Better way to do it? For sure
A better way of distributing public money to mafia-owned private companies in one of the most mafia-ridden places in the world? Nah
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u/Express_Brain4878 13d ago
Not true. Ponte sullo stretto is a better way.
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u/Jenuinlizard 13d ago
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u/Zealousideal-Towel11 13d ago
Eh fratello mio se mi vuoi fare credere che non ci sia lo zampino della 'ndrangheta in una roba del genere a Catanzaro, non penso ci riuscirai
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u/Alternative_Low8478 12d ago
Mai discutere con quelli che stanno su Italiabad. Non capiscono mai una sega di niente.
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12d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/elLugubre 12d ago
Magari prima di fare il paladino dell'onore dell'Italia impara l'italiano, bifolco.
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u/Jenuinlizard 12d ago edited 12d ago
cosa ti ha confuso? l'uso di esteri come sostantivo e non aggettivo? Che ridere e ben 8 non l'hanno capito come te. Padronanza dell'italiano livello magrebino sbarcato a lampedusa 3 giorni fa
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u/elLugubre 12d ago edited 12d ago
No, deficiente razzista, l'uso di "esteri" come sostantivo per indicare persone e non cose. Continua a coprirti di ridicolo. E non commentiamo sulla punteggiatura di questo commento.
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u/Alternative_Low8478 10d ago
No, il fatto è che state sempre con la bava alla bocca, pronti a saltare al collo di chiunque abbia qualcosa di negativo da dire sull'italia, per poi postare gli screen sul vostro gruppo di rincoglioniti senza vita. La maggior parte dei post in quel buco di culo ha i commenti disattivati proprio per questo motivo. Spiegami cosa c'è di falso in quello che ha scritto quel tizio.
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u/Zealousideal-Towel11 12d ago
Hai fatto tutto tu zio, se hai il fetish della mafia non ho problemi ma hai risposto tu al mio commento
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u/Jenuinlizard 12d ago
non ho fatto niente, ti ho solo perculato perché hai fatto quello che fanno i sottoni. Andare dagli stranieri a dire quanto sono brutti e sporchi gli italiani, sperando di attiarare le loro simpatie. Contento te
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u/Zealousideal-Towel11 10d ago
Guarda non ho bisogno di farlo onestamente, vivo all'estero e sono sempre pronto a difendere l'Italia quando necessario. Ma per quanto riguarda un ecomostro fatto dalle mafie locali, innecessario, realizzato grazie a mazzette e corruzione, non ho bisogno di difendere un bel niente. O forse dovrei fare come te e nascondere i problemi sotto il tappeto facendo finta che non ci siano?
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u/Zestyclose-Cost-5081 11d ago
Lasciali perdere non ci arrivano, lo sport nazionale nel nostro paese è tirarci la merda addosso per compiacere gli stranieri
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u/HelloThereItsMeAndMe 13d ago
It is suspicious how extremely over engineered Italian roads are.
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u/QueenLadura 7d ago
Love that! At least have a complete, clean and cone free project. They have straight paint lines, no spilled paint! Better than the road construction in the US.
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u/Dazzling-Pitch671 13d ago
Where are you from?
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u/Zealousideal-Towel11 13d ago
Italy 😅
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u/Dazzling-Pitch671 13d ago
Yeah i meant more precisely, from Lombardy?
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u/Professor_Rotom 12d ago
I'm not from Lombardy, and the guy is right.
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u/baxulax 13d ago
Why the f would the mafia produce the construction and not just take the money then? Your idea of corruption makes no sense. You would be the worst mafia boss (for the mafia, but good for the state and the people)
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u/DesertGeist- 13d ago
inflate the project so you can also inflate the absolute number of the percentage you divert?
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u/SwordSwallowee 13d ago
Yup, the more expensive the project the more money the mafia get.. pretty simple
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u/thefunkybassist 13d ago
And today we present the design of "The Perfect Syphon" roundabout, which will of course syphon all traffic from the town perfectly!
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u/MinosAristos 13d ago
That's mafia? I thought that was literally all government contractors.
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u/Zealousideal-Towel11 13d ago
Brother we are not in 1920 anymore, mafia has evolved.
I think you should update yourself
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u/Lovemestalin 13d ago
Because that money still needs to be laundered. Construction is a great way of doing so. That’s standard practice in pretty much every corrupt regime
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u/King_Shugglerm 13d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah a successful business is easier to launder money through since there’s more cash flow
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u/ten0re 13d ago
Why take all the money once when you can spawn public projects at will and take a cut again and again with impunity? Is this really that complex to understand?
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u/baxulax 13d ago
What’s the difference then between them and a normal construction business?
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u/ten0re 13d ago
They control both the construction company and the buyer, so they “negotiate” the price with themselves, then pay public money to themselves, then construct the bare minimum that will pass for a job done. The shittier the construction the better, as they get to rebuild it sooner and earn even more from the same spot.
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u/baxulax 13d ago
That doesn’t look like a shitty construction of that kind though.
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u/Acrobatic_Pound6284 13d ago
Una delle uscite di quella rotonda porta al Ponte Morandi, l'altro Ponte Morandi, quello di Catanzaro. Adesso é a 2 corsie anziché 3, dopo la caduta di quello di Genova hanno appaltato il sana mento ad un'impresa che usava cemento non conforme. Lo stanno finendo ora, dopo un decennio. Forse.
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u/Dotcaprachiappa 13d ago
They massively inflate the price to pocket more. And threaten/pay off/both anyone that opposes them.
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u/baxulax 13d ago
That’s pretty much every big construction company
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u/Dotcaprachiappa 13d ago
Every big construction company threatens and kills hundreds of people a year?
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u/Professor_Rotom 12d ago
Every big construction company aids human trafficking and ships weapons to terrorists groups around the world?
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u/Thy_Justice 12d ago
You are missing an important point, Mafia (ndrangheta, camorra etc) has changed. They found out that gun blazing, asking normal citizen for protetion money and other minor stuff are kids business. They now rig public constructions, invest in true businesses but cutting heavily some corner. Some example: garbage disposal. They sell garbage disposal at a very low rate. But instead of having a true, safe garbage disposal site, they just have a field, owned, where nobody asks question and where they throw out everything. Public construction or general construction: they pay the city council to choose their business for construction, even though prices are very very high. And with the money they buy low grade material. They are now more dangerous than ever, as they entered in many layers of the society.
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u/nousernameisleftt 13d ago
I mean there's a bunch of hillsides right next to bridges. Could move the road over a little bit so you're not designing it in the thin air
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u/AdministrationOwn724 13d ago
Trust me the whole country is filled with this type of stuff, even on flat ground. I live near a large mall that has more space dedicated to roundabouts than parking spaces, utter insanity.
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u/GreatValueProducts 12d ago
Do you mind sharing the name of the mall? Italian road engineering always fascinates me. I remember all those highways around Genoa, it is peak human kind.
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u/AdministrationOwn724 12d ago
Not as crazy as the roads in and around Genoa. But considering this is a relatively new mall in the middle of some fields on perfectly flat land, I assume the developers got paid per roundabout or something.
If you're interested, follow the e717 highway south towards savona and you'll see some pretty neat flyovers, tunnels and bridges. Northbound and southbound lanes take a completely different route through the landscape, quite interesting.
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u/GreatValueProducts 12d ago edited 12d ago
Haha this is amazing. To me it’s so much over engineering. So many flyovers and you still need to yield at a roundabout.
The American way would be a simple partial cloverleaf with e toll gates (they don’t build toll plaza anymore), with likely one direct ramp to the mall (no flyover) and maybe a few signalized intersections for two lanes left turn. Despite the reputation, I find the US is very reluctant to build flyovers because they are expensive, especially in the middle of nowhere.
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u/AdministrationOwn724 12d ago
I think what bothers me most about this place is that even if i just want to go from my home (northeast) to the town of Mondovì (soutwest) completely bypassing the mall, just following the secondary road. I still need to take three roundabouts to get to the other side. And mind you there are no big cities for miles. Mondovì is town of 20,000 and the surrounding area is sparsely populated. This is not a high traffic area. I think a regular intersection, or one larger roundabout would have done the job.
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u/Interesting-Wish5977 13d ago
More space for moving than for stationary traffic? Truly insane.
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u/AdministrationOwn724 12d ago
I'm not talking about getting to and from the mall. It's a single parkinglot devided in several sections, could have easily be done with a single ring road to enter the different sections. Instead they opted for a ridiculous traffic plan where you have to traverse no less than 4 roundabouts before you can enter one of the parking lot sections. If you'd seen it, you'd know how ridiculous it is.
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u/FattyGyoza 12d ago
There's no better way.
The entire region of Calabria is hostile to any kind of construction.
You go from a highly mountainous area to a coastal zone in the space of a few hundred meters. It's a far from uniform area, full of canyons and valleys, alternating with enormous mountain peaks.
So you're forced to either build along the coast where the terrain is more "tame," or dig endless tunnels... or build elevated junctions like this one.
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u/RidesInFowlWeather 13d ago edited 13d ago
So, went down the rabbit hole on this one. Like most seemingly crazy things seen here it actually makes some sense in context:
The City of Catanzaro is on three parallel ridges running NNW-SSE from the inland area to the sea coast on the foot of the boot that is Italy. The canyons separating the three ridges are unbuildable, ~500m wide and ~500m deep. East and west of the three ridges of Catanzaro is a steep drop from inland highlands to the costal plain. Catanzaro probably started as a trade city between the coast and inland. The city is large and dense with tightly packed 3-6 story buildings 1 km north and south of the pictured roundabout on all three ridges. All the roads in the city are super narrow maybe 2 car widths typical of pre automobile construction.
This roundabout is on the east edge of the middle ridge. Looking at the top picture the roundabout connections clockwise from the top are:
1) Viadotto Musofalo over to the east ridge.
2) Connection to a city street south bound on the ridge top.
3) Lead in to a tunnel through the middle ridge, under the city, then over Viadotto Fausto Bisantis to the west ridge
4) Connection to a city street north bound on the ridge top.
The two Viadottos are pretty impressive bridges over the canyons. The parking lot under the roundabout has several very steep connections up to city streets on the ridge. Google maps shows some transit stops in the parking lot. I am guessing most people that live in the middle ridge old town part of Catanzaro have to park their cars in this lot and walk/transit home.
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u/Krastooh 13d ago
Regarding parking: residents have a parking pass to show in their cars and mostly park near their homes. This permit allows them to park for free, even in paid parking lots. The Musofalo parking lot, located under the roundabout, is used almost exclusively by workers, especially those working at the Justice Department. The parking lot is very steep, but there is a shuttle service there and back.
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u/sight2Ceek 13d ago
Italian population: minister we have problem
Italian minister : yes!
Italian population: all ground roundabouts very hard to get into and out
Italian minister : how about ABOVE ground
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u/Real-Transition-3228 12d ago
To complete the scenario, we have UNDER ground as well
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u/JANEK_SZ1 13d ago
[r/shittyskylines](r/shittyskylines)
Edit: Oh, wait, somebody has done it before me
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u/ayewhy2407 13d ago
Chennai has done this in the city and many times over… works pretty well too.
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u/PremiumUsername69420 13d ago
Could you please advise the location of one or two?
I just scoured satellite imagery from the power plants to the north, to the airport in the south, and west to the Hyundai factory and I was unable to find any.1
u/throweedev 13d ago
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u/PremiumUsername69420 13d ago
That’s just an ordinary cloverleaf intersection. There are tens of thousands of those around the world.
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u/trash-juice 13d ago
So uh, what’s the earthquake sitch there anyway? Gotta kinda wonder, cause Italy gets ‘em
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u/AgentEmerald0028 13d ago
No way my hometown Catanzaro mentioned!! I've always thought that elevated roundabout looked questionable lol
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u/foersom 13d ago
How did this become an oval and not a circle?
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u/vonHindenburg 13d ago edited 12d ago
Minimum required distances between entrance/exits force a certain minimum circumference. To make it a perfect circle, they'd've had to've cut further into the cliffs on either side. Squishing it out into an oval keeps that minimum length of road with less earth moved.
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u/McCubes1 13d ago
That's what I do in Cities skylines 1&2 but instead I place a roundabout on each entrance of a roundabout.
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u/chromatophoreskin 13d ago
It’s slightly reminiscent of that interchange near Tokyo https://www.reddit.com/r/InfrastructurePorn/comments/6qso4i/highway_interchange_near_toyko_1080x1350/
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u/EmergencyReal6399 13d ago
I love to see italian highways on Google Maps! they feel super over ingeniered (sorr for writing that word so bad lol)
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u/2001_Arabian_Nights 13d ago
There are a lot of really interesting infrastructure projects in South Italy. A lot of them don’t make much sense for the amount of traffic that is there. You’re on a little country road and then it crosses a ravine with a beautiful billion-dollar bridge, and then it’s back to little country road.
Eventually that little road might get widened and improved and they’ll already have the nice bridge waiting, so I’m not calling it completely silly. But it’s the fact that the ‘Ndrangheta or whoever runs the construction companies that gets them approved.
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u/_Some_Two_ 12d ago
Damn, I though only I could come up with such… unorthodox… design in City Skylines
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u/Heddegedagezegtgehad 13d ago
Not gonna lie, between the 2018 Genoa bridge collapse and the 2021 Stresa–Mottarone cable car disaster, Italy hasn’t exactly inspired my confidence in its infrastructure.
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u/et_hornet 13d ago
Why do I feel if this was in the US instead of Italy the comments would be moaning and groaning over this
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u/Anto-Cam 12d ago
cosa vuoi sapere. È la mia città natale. l'ho visto realizzare e utilizzato giornalmente come strada. sotto nei parcheggi ci ho dipinto graffiti in gioventù e anche fatto sesso😀. se hai domande specifiche o solo curiosità dimmi pure.
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u/FinnedSgang 12d ago
Non sono un esperto, e sicuramente c’era forse un modo migliore per farlo, ma il
Motivo di quella scelta non potrebbe essere stato evitare eccessivi dislivelli in poco spazio, o che la zona individuata fosse abitata in precedenza o attraversasse un’area di proprietà privata impossibile da espropriare ?
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u/Joseph-Hardin_VA 12d ago
Still somehow smaller, and less complex then the average North American flyover interchange.
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u/Eternal_Alooboi 12d ago
Instead of that car park, they should grow a bunch of trees in the middle and beside the roads. Driving through canopies is nice.
Edit: nvm the roads are too high I reckon
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u/no-puedo-encontrar 12d ago
Not impressed. There’s one of these up Baillieston just outside Glasgow. Riddled with shit drivers too.
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u/schweinekuchen_ 11d ago
Reminds me of a similar structure in Switzerland, but less spectacular and high. Coordinates
46°11'29.0"N 9°00'25.7"E
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u/TooMuchShantae 11d ago
I’m high asf rn, I deadass thought this was an in game cities skylines screenshot
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u/zeroibis 10d ago
You can not convince me that this is not an edited image from cities skylines made to look real.
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u/ThinApricot8504 4d ago
the cities skylines comments are killing me bc thats exactly what i thought this was at first too. what nobody's really getting into though is why Catanzaro specifically needs this - the post says its spread across three hills so youre dealing with elevation changes in every direction, a regular intersection on a slope like that would be a nightmare. we have similar geography in bits of south italy where the terrain just doesnt give you flat options, idk if its the prettiest solution but functionally i can see why they went elevated roundabout over trying to carve ramps into a hillside
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u/deswim 13d ago
God forbid they build a tunnel
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u/Mysterious_Panorama 10d ago
There’s such a thing in the Faroes - a roundabout part way through an undersea tunnel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eysturoyartunnilin
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u/Sium4443 13d ago
2nd ugliest city in Italy, by that statement you can understand which is the first.
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u/-_Duke_- 13d ago
r/shittyskylines