“These are the same feelings of joy and happiness that exactly, about a year ago, accompanied the first historic opening of the third lot. It is important to renew our thanks to all those who in these fifty years, thanks to their roles at a political and institutional level, have made it possible to cut this ribbon today. I am humbly happy to be the mayor who opened the Gallico-Gambarie and therefore concludes a process that began long before us. This is a work that the metropolitan city carried out with European funding from the Calabria Region with a fruitful inter-institutional protagonism on multiple levels. I would also like to renew my thanks to our offices and the designers, the executing company, the mayors who have been the constant driving force in these years, as well as the associations who have ensured that attention has never been lost on this great work”. Thus the metropolitan mayor of Reggio Calabria, Giuseppe Falcomatà, present today at the inauguration of the additional section of the SSV Gallico-Gambarie, a fundamental road artery for the connection between Reggio Calabria and the Aspromonte National Park through the Gallico Valley.
“I hope – added the mayor – not only that this is the work that definitively unites the sea with the mountains, Aspromonte with the city, but that it is also an example aimed at politics and institutions to say that things can be done well when there is a common purpose on the part of everyone”.
“There is a hope – highlighted Falcomatà – that the work completed today will not remain unique in our metropolitan area: the so-called ‘comb’ connection between mountain and hilly areas with, let’s say, the marine coast of the metropolitan area, is fundamental to stem, not to resolve, the depopulation of our territories”.
“If we look at the Svimez data which highlights what Calabria could be like in the next fifty years due to depopulation, which is already underway – stated the metropolitan mayor – politics and institutions, each in their own role, must work so that this can be stemmed and stopped. There is obviously a theme of the internal areas, of the services that must be present, which is obviously also connected to the presence of road arteries that can allow better, quicker reaching of these areas. This element can remove the alibi so that, for example, in these areas the medical guards close, the social centers close, the schools close”.
“Nowadays this road means all this, but – concluded Falcomatà – above all it means a commitment for other Gallico-Gambarie areas to be financed, designed and built”.
The ceremony, which took place along the new road stretch of approximately 600 meters with the construction of two modern viaducts, was also attended by the Director of the Road Sector of the Metropolitan City, who followed the construction phases of the work, together with the technicians of the Works Management and the contracting company Avr; the president of the Regional Council of Calabria, Salvatore Cirillo, the president of the mayors of the Strait Area, Michele Spadaro and the deputy Francesco Cannizzaro. Also present were all the mayors of the Gallico Valley, the local associations including the “18 September 2003” Association, the Gallico-Gambarie Committee, together with a colorful and enthusiastic delegation of very young students from the comprehensive school of Santo Stefano d’Aspromonte who read a message of good wishes at the opening of the ceremony.