“Turin to be reasphalted” is a campaign that La Stampa is launching together with its readers to raise awareness in the City of Turin on the issue of potholes and their danger. Along with articles and insights you will find a form that allows you to photograph a hole and report it, a map with readers’ reports, graphs and analyses.
The campaign was launched last March 2nd and, after the collection of the first reports, the Municipality of Turin decided to integrate its data with that of La Stampa. In this way, a second map was created that monitors the progress of pothole coverage. Municipality workers have also started plugging the potholes reported to the newspaper. The campaign is both online and in the paper newspaper, through a QR code that can be scanned next to each article that deals with the topic. We still have many ideas to continue the campaign and we are convinced that, with everyone’s participation, things can be improved. We await your reports.
The hot areas
The Municipality of Turin has decided to tackle the problem of potholes head on, a problem which according to the mayor Stefano Lo Russo himself is also the result of twenty years of disinvestment and neglect. But a city that turns into a gruyere every time a downpour comes is a problem. Both in terms of citizen safety and economically (the cases against the City have grown in recent years and in 2023 alone there were 600 court summons and 300,000 euros in compensation).
On March 15, after the latest rains, the Municipality of Turin announced that it had made an extraordinary effort to repair the broken asphalt and that it had made 88% of the reported potholes safe. This is certainly a step forward, but this step is sometimes longer and sometimes shorter depending on the areas of the city.
If we analyze the Municipality’s data on potholes repaired, those still to be repaired and those to be fixed with the highest priority, we discover that there are districts such as 1 and 7 in which the road surface has been completely or almost completely repaired ( in the historic center and in Crocetta all the potholes have been repaired, while in the neighborhoods of Aurora, Vanchiglia, Sassi and Madonna del Pilone the percentage is 98%). Constituencies 3, 4 and 5 also show more than satisfactory percentages (over 90%).
However, it should be noted that in some suburbs the situation is not so rosy. The area in the worst situation is that of District 6. In Regio Parco, Barriera di Milano, Falchera, Rebaudengo, Barca Bertolla and Villaretto only 77% of the potholes reported had been repaired, while 21% (over one in five) were still to be fixed, while 2.5% were even indicated to be repaired “with the highest priority”. The same thing happens in District 2. Here the neighborhoods of Santa Rita and Mirafiori have 79% of potholes repaired and 17% still to be repaired. However, it is the figure of the chasms considered most dangerous that is worrying: 4.3% of the reports are of the highest priority.
This is undoubtedly due to various factors, one of which is the large arteries that cross these neighborhoods. More km of roads means a greater possibility that they will deteriorate and the fact that these are high-traffic roads does not help given the quantity of vehicles that travel on them every day. However, it is certainly necessary for a greater effort to be made in these two areas of Turin given that the repair percentages are ten percentage points lower than the worst of the best, i.e. District 8 (San Salvario, Cavoretto, Borgo Po, Nizza Millefonti, Lingotto and Philadelphia) which has 87% of its holes plugged.
