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 cost of the upgrade (in August 2013) was projected to reach over €10bn by the time it was eventually completed, then envisaged as perhaps by 2018.