| Published in Tourist Info / Highways |
A8 autoroute, France
The A8 autoroute, also known as La Provençale, is a 224-kilometer (139 mi)-long highway in France that runs between Aix-en-Provence and the A7 to the Côte d'Azur.
The A8 is an extension of the A7 starting to the west of Aix-en-Provence at La Fare-les-Oliviers. The road passes through the Departments of Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and Alpes-Maritimes. It serves the towns of Aix-en-Provence, Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël, Mandelieu-la-Napoule, Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Monaco and Menton before crossing the border where it becomes the A10 in Italy.
It crosses the mountain ranges of Sainte-Baume and of Maures between Aix-en-Provence and Fréjus and the Massif de l'Esterel between Saint-Raphaël and Cannes. Following the Grande Corniche the road offers panoramas of the sea between Nice and Menton.
Length: 224 km (139 mi)
Speed limit: France has the following speed limits for limited access roads classified as motorways:
• Under normal conditions - 130 km/h (80 mph)
• In rain or wet road conditions - 110 km/h (70 mph)
• In heavy fog or snowy/icy conditions - 50 km/h (30 mph)
Limited access roads classified as express roads have lower speed limit (90 or 110 km/h, 55 or 70 mph).
In normal conditions, there is a minimum speed of 80 km/h (50 mph) in the lane most left (no minimum speed on the others' right lanes, but speed should be adapted for each situation: not too slow).
The section through the southern Alps from Nice Saint-Augustin to the frontier with Italy has 15 tunnels. There is a speed limit of 90 km/h in the tunnels (70 km/h for large vehicles).
Traffic
The road has heavy traffic all year round and is especially congested in July and August (in particular around Antibes and Nice. As a result, traffic-management schemes have been adopted between Var to Nice-West similar to those on the Péripherique in Paris. The autoroute is regularly closed on the Nice-Menton section as a result of rock falls onto the carriageways. The sections crossing the Maures and L'Esterel mountains are at risk from forest fires in summer.
Source
• www.wikipedia.org
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