That finally, after years of doubts and postponements, construction work has started on the fundamental C metro station in Piazza Venezia is excellent news for Rome, for its citizens and for those who frequent the city. The fact that its construction site is creating major traffic problems in a crucial point for Rome’s transport risks not only representing a problem in itself, but also further contributing to that pessimism towards the construction of infrastructures, even fundamental ones, which regularly hovers among the Romans, with the implication that the construction site will last much longer than expected and will bring endless disruptions, without thinking about the benefits of the work because, anyway, one imagines seeing it completed only in many years.
Unfortunately, to support this narrative, there are many unfinished or late works around Rome, from Calatrava’s sails in Tor Vergata to the former General Markets in Ostiense, reduced to eternal construction sites or skeletons that have become an integral part of the skyline. But this cannot overshadow one fact: Rome has a structural problem of traffic and dependence on private cars and must do everything possible to overcome it, in line with the other major European capitals. And having the subway pass through Piazza Venezia is just a small step among the many necessary ones.
But for this transition to be carried out, a contextual management of uncontrollable traffic is needed, which has long characterized this city and which today in the central area must coexist with the construction sites of Piazza Venezia and Piazza Pia, where work is underway for the extension of the underpass which would create a large and evocative pedestrian area between Castel Sant’Angelo and San Pietro to be completed by the Jubilee of 2025. Hoping there are no problems, the times for the Piazza Venezia station are instead longer, from a technical point of view one of the most complex ever built in the world, given that it will have to be built at a great depth due to the unique archaeological context in the world which will require much more complex work. This complexity means that the estimated time for the construction site, net of any delays and postponements, is approximately ten years. A time in which it is inconceivable to see the incessant traffic we have witnessed so far since the start of the works, and with which it is unthinkable to welcome the multitude of pilgrims, tourists and visitors expected for the 2025 Jubilee.
Self-dependent
According to the 2021 Rome Mobility Services report, in Rome there are 923 private vehicles for every thousand inhabitants between 14 and 85 years old. More cars than licenses, councilor Eugenio Patanè noted at the time. A fact that translates into unmanageable traffic and parallel phenomena such as illegal parking in everyday life. All with a subway and an urban railway system that covers only a small portion of the city and in which there is no shortage of long waiting times (on line C there are frequent 15-minute waits for passage), a reduced number of tram lines and buses that often get stuck among the rivers of cars. Although one might think that the number of cars would decrease when a more efficient public transport service was created, the situation is actually more complex, because the excessive presence of vehicles represents an obstacle to the possibility of carrying out works and interventions to support mobility.
But why are there all these cars in Rome compared to other large Italian cities and other European capitals? The answer is linked to a series of choices of the past and is reflected in the 1959 master plan and in many political choices of that period. That year, on the eve of the historic Rome Olympics, a plan to reorganize the Atac lines was implemented by councilor Agostino Greggi which led to the dismantling of almost all the tram lines to make room for private cars. The objective was to focus on buses and separate traffic flows between public (road) and private transport, but the choice proved ineffective. And in the master plan of the same year, it was decided not to develop the subway in the new neighborhoods – areas which today largely fall within the consolidated city -, where it would still have been possible to create wide-open roads and continue to focus on the car. The plan also noted that the subway would be a valid option only for the central area, where this space for cars was limited, but given the desire to decentralize a large part of the activities of the historic fabric, this choice was also put in the background. Choices that have resulted in an increase in the use of private cars in Rome. And at that time, the metro consisted of only line B between Termini and Laurentina and was preparing for the twenty-year construction of line A, in the stretch between Ottaviano and Anagnina. For the start of new works we had to wait until the end of the 1980s, with the extension of the B for the football World Cup.
The necessary interventions
Today, with this situation, interventions are necessary, although not easy. An urban conformation that is anything but simple – Rome is a municipality of immense dimensions, composed largely of the countryside and with many isolated and difficult to reach inhabited areas -, a deep-rooted habit of using the car even for short journeys, public services which are not always efficient and which often reach some of these areas in fits and starts, especially the most remote ones, are among the main obstacles.
In parallel with the development of a metropolitan and tram network, which however requires time, money and resources, simpler complementary measures that can be implemented in a short time are needed, ranging from the valorisation of alternative mobility with cycle paths and pedestrian paths which today are still often perceived as spaces for leisure and Sunday walks but are instead in all respects paths for especially medium and short journeys, those journeys for which the car still continues to be used excessively today.
But we cannot fail to take another element into consideration: much of the public transport system is not exploited and it would be important to promote as much awareness as possible among Romans of the existing transport system. Not all Romans are fully aware of the extension of the urban railway network, in fact a valid abutment to the underground, and many rail transport stations could be better valorised: just think that passing along Via Ostiense you have no perception that you are passing a few meters from the Garbatella station. An awareness that also comes through information: the electronic poles, the apps and all the tools that allow you to know precisely the waiting times have done a great job of valorization in this sense.
Parallel to this, the exclusion of the most polluting vehicles from the green zone ZTL is a major point of discussion. This, however, is a different matter, it risks not reducing dependence on the car as for the ZTLs which aim to decongest areas well served by transport and particularly frequented, but of affecting those who have an old vehicle which perhaps they only use marginally because a new one can’t afford it. Public transport and alternative mobility should be promoted to ensure that, gradually, those who have a car, whether old or new, feel the need to use it less and less. Also because, although traveling by car may seem like a form of freedom, if three million Romans all took cars we wouldn’t be free, we would spend our lives stuck in traffic that we are helping to create.
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