Update on Metro C

After the recent publication the findings of Italy’s Auditor’s (Corte dei Conti),  discussion of the Metro C fiasco has been fervent.   As an Addendum to my post here, I am adding several links for further information.

A short Italian-language news documentary on TS Inchieste  explains succinctly the situation and interviews Prof. Antonio Tamburrino concerning the alternatives he has been proposing for years.  Principle message:  a project which was originally to have been inaugurated during the 2000 Jubilee is still nowhere near complete. As progress has slowed, costs have skyrocketed, primarily due to frequent changes in plans during construction.

Rome’s English-language newspaper Wanted in Rome has also picked up on the story, publishing yesterday a short piece (with links back to my own blog and videos). It quotes Audit Court president Luigi Giampaolino calling the Metro C “the most expensive and slowest public works project in Europe and the world”.  They have asked me to write a piece on the eternal city’s transit challenges which I hope to have by the end of the month.

In the meantime, the videos I produced to share Prof. Tamburrino’s observations about transit in Rome are live on YouTube with English CC subtitles. Part One discusses  the history of Rome’s transit predicament and explains why it is essential to start with a strategic plan that introduces modern mobility technologies to connect the life of the contemporary city back to its historical roots.  Part Two starts to delineate his proposal for Mobilità 3.0,  a smart, effective solution which achieves the following goals:

1. liberation of the historical center from private automobiles to transform it and its many historical assets into a dynamic setting for 21st century life
2. the restoration of the Tiber and its riverscape from Tor de Quinto to Ostia as an  useable (navigable) ecological, cultural resource.
3.  the completion of and creation of efficient bypass “rings” to facilitate the flow of private traffic around, not through, the center of Rome.
4. the construction of new generation light-rail and/or rubber-tyred trams so as to provide complete coverage of central Rome and integrate an efficient public transit solution around the existing ring road and from the ring to the center
5. the completion of rail lines where possible to complete the strategy.

I am off to Barcelona this week with students, seeking inspiration from a Mediterranean city which took decisive steps to solve its traffic issues with great success.