Casalecchio di Reno: road/railway multimodal corridor

Project Introduction
The project is located within the municipality of Casalecchio di Reno, near Bologna (northern Italy); the project objective is to achieve through a greenfield section the connection of two existing and important roads, namely: on the North side, the “Asse Attrezzato” expressway, coming from the Bologna bypass, and, on the South side, the new “SS64 Porrettana”, a National main road ending at Sasso Marconi; this last road was built during the 90’s, when the existing Highway A1 (going parallel to the SS64) was widened.
The total length of the greenfield section under the scope of work is 4 km: the corridor of the new road alignment is located close to an existing single track railway line (Bologna-Porretta), which will be re-aligned, and it crosses several commercial and residential areas; for this reason the project includes two parallel tunnels, side by side, one for the new road and the other one for the railway; the project was developed also taking into account the prospective widening of the existing railway to a double track layout.

• Length of the road greenfield section: about 4 km, of which:
  • expressway section, double carriageway (2×2) 2 km
  • main road, single carriageway 2 km
• Length of the railway section to be re-aligned: about 1 km
• Road tunnel: 1.2 km along the expressway section
• Railway tunnel: 0.6 km, including an underground station
• Cantagallo railway over bridge: 169 m – spans arrangement: 4 x 40 m, 2 x 47 m, 1 x 35 m, deck: steel beams (h. 2.0 m) and pile foundations.
• 3 minor bridges, the first crossing Rio dei Gamberi (single span of 18.30 m) and the other two crossing a new roundabout at the Fainello interchange (single span of 15.50 m each)
• Implementation of inverted culverts for interferences resolution with sewage, water and gas lines
• Implementation of drainage trenches for 1.6 km
• Hydraulic re-alignment of Rio dei Gamberi (350 m)
• Safety equipments for the tunnel section
• Environmental mitigation works, ie. noise screens ( 1.65 km), landscaping, greenery and new bike paths (1 km)