Ivrea
Once the ordinance has been signed and the road signs have been removed, the very first Zone 30 functional to the electrification works has been fully operational since Tuesday morning, bringing with it a reorganization of the (experimental) road network that is now ready to start.
The stretch already affected by the obligation to travel at walking pace, for the moment, is the one between Porta Torino and Corso Garibaldi, passing through Corso Nigra. And this is one step. But between next Monday and Tuesday, this first stretch will be incorporated with the completion of which the 30 per hour will be extended to via Torino up to the roundabout that regulates the entrance to state road 26 leading to the Terzo Ponte. This extension is in turn subordinated to the construction of a roundabout in Porta Aosta, where by Friday we will intervene with an experimental roundabout, delimited by removable New Jerseys, anchored to the ground by a water or sand system. And Corso Garibaldi will become two-way traffic. We’re at the point, in short. With this, Ivrea marries the reasons for sustainability and a city more suitable for pedestrians than for cars, objectives of which the Chiantore council has never made a secret, with the adjustments imposed by the electrification of the railway to Aosta, in view of its most impact in which it is necessary to increase the height of the railway tunnel that runs underground. Between Porta Aosta and down to the station and beyond, the new horizontal signs have been largely drawn up taking advantage of the good weather (the color is the yellow typical of the construction site signs), and the vertical ones have become thicker: the signs have increased to Be careful, but they will remain covered until everything goes up to speed, in just under a week. The only ones to reveal themselves are precisely those of the starting portion of the first Zone 30 of Ivrea, to which the second and third Zone 30 of Bellavista and San Giovanni (corresponding to the entire neighborhoods) will be added by the summer.
All good, but who controls? In this sense, the section already fully operational from Tuesday will constitute a small test bed, as regards a narrow junction where you either slow down or crash into the walls of the Dora. «If we see that this Zone 30 is respected at 90%, then ok – warns the local police commander Paolo Molinario -. But given the characteristics of the road, I honestly don’t think drastic interventions will be needed, it’s difficult to go faster than that. By drastic interventions I mean checkpoints with a patrol that stops vehicles; you can see it by eye if they exceed 30 per hour and you dispute the speed which is not adequate for the environmental context”: that’s a 48 euro fine. Or, «but this is already more complex to organize because it requires us to have a certain space to stop and where to put the supplementary warning signs, to carry out checks with the telelaser, which we are equipped with. So we could do it at the station, but I hope it doesn’t get to this point.”
