The Autostrada A3 is a motorway in Southern Italy, which runs from Naples to Salerno, in the region Campania. Until 2017 the route was much longer, going after Salerno further south until Reggio Calabria; on this year, this section became part of the new A2 motorway and of its two spur routes. Overview Due to sections not being originally constructed to anywhere near Motorway standard and to the notoriously poor conditions of maintenance, and also to the difficult terrain along some of the route, the motorway has been often taken as a symbol of the backwardness and economical problems of southern Italy. Italian historian Leandra D'Antone has defined it "a true Italian shame". The European Union declines to classify the road as a "motorway" due to the decades-long roadwork restrictions on a supposedly modern road and seeks recompense for its financial contributions. On 22 December 2016 the Salerno-Reggio Calabria freeway was declared complete, 20 years after the first renovation works started, with the opening of Larìa tunnel in Cosenza. In a ceremony held in Reggio Calabria, prime minister Paolo Gentiloni begged pardon "for the delay" and the road name was changed from "A3 Salerno-to-Reggio Calabria" to "A2 Autostrada del Mediterraneo" (Highway of the Mediterranean). History The first stretch of the road to be completed was the Naples-Pompeii section, finished on 22 June 1929. The connection onward to Salerno was completed on 16 July 1961. In 1964 the Italian government decided to build a motorway which connected the rest of Italy to Calabria, so far considered a kind of "Third Island" (together with Sicily and Sardinia), due to the nature of its terrain, which made it problematic to reach the region. The new motorway was built in a total of 8 years, the works being delivered on 13 June 1974. The road built by 1974 is more similar to a sub-standard freeway (Italian: strada statale, "state road") than to the other autostrade (motorways) in Italy. 1997–2017 Renovation Queues became a common feature, especially in summer. To solve the situation, the Italian government funded the construction of a new route which would remove the high gradients and sharp turns and enlarge the carriageway. This required the construction of new tunnels and viaducts (among these the viadotto italia the highest in Italy) while keeping the traffic on the current motorway open. The reconstruction works started in 1997 and officially ended in 2016 during