The GRA or Grande Raccordo Anulare is a toll-free, ring-shaped long orbital motorway that encircles Rome. GRA is one of the most important roads in Rome, and traffic reaches 160,000 vehicles per day as of 2011. The GRA features 14 tunnels, with lengths varying from the 66 meters of Parco di Veio II tunnel to the 1,150 meters of the Appia Antica tunnel as well as eight rest areas. It has 42 junctions, with the Via Aurelia numbered 1 and the rest following clockwise. The motorway has always been toll-free. However, there are plans to introduce a fee for vehicles entering the GRA from highways. Maintenance costs are around 11 million per year. Its acronym was given after one of its main designers and supporters, Eugenio Gra, chairman of ANAS, the Italian roads Authority, at the time of construction. The official number among the Italian motorways is A90, but is widely known by Romans as Il Raccordo.
History
Plans for an orbital road around Rome were proposed by the end of World War II. One of the designers' main purposes was to build the road as most equally distant as possible from the geographic centre of town, the Campidoglio, away from the motorway. Construction works started in 1948. The first section, Flaminia to Tiburtina opened in 1952, later extended in stages. The last section to be opened was the west-to-north section, in 1970. Although the GRA was initially planned and built as a single-carriageway road, it was soon clear that traffic was rapidly growing well beyond the expectations. Upgrade works to motorway standards started in late 1950s with first dual-carriageway, four-lane section opened 1962. Further works were carried over throughout the 1970s, and by 1979, the remainder sections were upgraded to four-lane and the entire ring classified as toll-free highway. Upgrade works to 6-lane started in 1983 and were completed in stages throughout the 1990s and 2000s. As of April 2008 97% of the GRA was 6-lane with final sections opened 2011.
Future expansion
It has been suggested that a second ring might be constructed in the future, firstly as an attempt to alleviate congestion on the old one and secondly to offer access to a number of new industrial, commercial and residential zones built around it. Such a project would imply a new external ring-shaped orbital motorway of about, denominated NIA, which would cost over €5 billion.
