Rome Tramway Report 1.0

On October 25 in Rome it was presented the so called "Rapporto Ferrotranviario 1.0" (Tramway Report 1.0). The municipal elections are getting closer, therefore this is the right moment for current mayor to shoot his propaganda cartridges. I might be wrong, but at a first sight this programme looks quite backward and inappropriate.


But let's start with a "historical" digression. A similar work, but much more "full-bodied", was done about fifteen years ago, under the supervision of an architect called Fagioli and the advice of a transport engineer called Cascetta ... yes, that conceited and arrogant Cascetta we all mobility planners know pretty well, while the rest of the Italian population should remember him for his judicial problems when he was alderman at the Campania Region administration. I am talking about the Pro.I.Mo (or PROIMO, which stands for Integrated Mobility Program), one of the many electoral weapons of professional politician Francesco Rutelli when he was mayor of Rome. PROIMO was not only a mediocre project by itself, but was already old at the very time of its publication. Not only because back then "integrated" meant the joint analysis of mobility by road and rail (rather than referring to Integrated urban planning), but mainly because that work was based on data that only took into consideration the status quo, and not the Rome that one could foreshadow at the end of the implementation of planned urban projects. Ie: while it would take AT LEAST 20 years from the project on paper to a passenger who could actually use the new underground, PROIMO had not considered planned Rome changes, the future Rome, a city that continues to grow - at least physically - at a fast pace. A Rome that was already different at the time of presentation of the project with respect to data collection, both because had already modified structurally in its "interior", and because mobility flows were already taking place in a territory larger than the considered one, just municipal, having already sprawled throughout the whole province and good part of the Lazio Region, a wide territory that had also changed a lot.

I hope to be disproved at a second more careful reading of this program (c'mon, we are talking about what politicians and technicians might do to my "craddle" Rome!), but in this newly published Roman Tramway Report 1.0 I detect the same methodological lacks (what is not there, but should) and cracks (what is there, and shouldn't) of PROIMO.

In these lines I could give the impression of having an adversity towards the demand analysis or the cost-benefit analysis, or quantitative studies in general. Not at all. I actually criticise the misuse of quantitative data. In the case of Rome (but I think it is now the standard in many places around the world) restricting the analysis within the city administrative boundaries or drafting plans according to current distributions, in my opinion is almost useless. I consider a wrong approach that in a metropolitan region like Rome, in the analysis of flows and in project development are not taken into account the tens of thousands of people who daily come to Rome from the surrounding towns of Civitavecchia, Viterbo, Cassino, Latina, etc. (even Naples!) and the given areas around them. Only part of those people use the train for getting to Ostiense, Termini, Tiburtina, etc. stations, sometimes travelling along a single-track railway that - also as a consequence - offers a very mediocre service. It is also bad not taking into account the "changing city" (like architects love saying), the different use of buildings and areas. Moreover, why not considering planned urban projects for the future? I am aware of the fact that in Italy in many cases we are still stuck to "regulatory plans", something that is no much more than zoning, instead of focussing on strategic plans, and that, unfortunately, actual urban development rarely follows planning but is rather a consequences of changing economical needs and political powers (not rarely criminal or lead by masonry) through the use of the so-called "variants", but I believe it is NECESSARY that transport planners consider how urban planners have imagined the future city... It is in this direction that I see the future. And outside Italy it is what often already happens.


I think that grounding projects on the distribution of current quantitative flows can definitely be handy in the field of logistics, where structures (functions and their locations) and infrastructure (what allows structures to "run") are almost stable. Different story, however, should be for urban mobility planning, especially for those cities that are growing so fast and chaotically like Rome. Rome, as mentioned, cannot be considered no longer a "city", because in the last 20 years turned into a monocentric metropolis, a bit like Milan. On its "tentacles" (small towns, surrounding villages) changes in the function of buildings occur at an almost frantic rate (see for example the second homes by the sea or in the countryside, now almost all converted into first homes by commuters). Rome is not a photography, it is a growing stray animal! To not consider Rome as a living and dynamic entity is a terrible mistake. Not to mention that the strategic planning of urban rail, due to its low flexibility, length in time realization and high costs, can not and must not be a planning "response" to current needs, but rather an incentive to a planned mobility, so that current (and planned) flows can be addressed and modified by designed interventions.

A transportation planning that does not take into account FUTURE urban developments of the metropolitan area where transport design insists (already designed and under construction) is intended to lead to a partial failure, at least for end users (much less for companies involved in the construction). Not mentioning that referring to forecasts (which merely are projections of current situations) normally takes to wrong scenarios. I therefore believe that calculations should be done taking into account data about the potential urban development.

A panacea is no more than a mythological Greek figure: insisting on THE perfect solution, valid for all seasons and all contexts, is just a wast of time. Unfortunately, in the field of urban planning (including mobility planning) many people blindly believe in the holy word of "best practices", interpreting the concept as a proper "copy & paste" practice. My vision is rather the opposite: it is necessary to start analysing the given territory (topography, distributions and variety of functions, planned interventions, local culture, etc.) and then verify the realization / economic potentials. In the end planners should propose to politicians and stakeholders (including companies potentially interested in the interventions) a range of integrated plans.