The first five tram lines ready by 2028. Well before even the completion of the work on the bridge over the Strait. This is the deadline he has set himself Marco Ciralli, Area Manager of the Mobility sector of the Municipality of Palermo. The manager of the Technical Center spoke yesterday afternoon at the terminal Piazza Boiardo, in front of the Notarbartolo Station. Supporting him were a series of managers from Amat, a subsidiary company which also manages the tram. Troop obviously led by the president Giuseppe Mistretta. Among the topics covered were the ten new tram lines that should be built in the city in the coming years. Routes which, according to forecasts, should revolutionize the city’s road system. A mobility restyling operation which however met with various resistance from the civic and political world.
Phase two of the tram system, starting in September
The beating heart of the Urban Sustainable Mobility Plan (abbreviated PUMS) is in fact moving towards the start of the works which, as declared by the councilor Maurizio Carta to the microphones of BlogSicilia, should take place within September 2024. The first preparatory checks on the underground services have begun in the city, as well as the first procedures for expropriating assets that risk hindering future excavations. Starting first will be line C, a route that will connect the current line 4 with the Central Station. Excavations which however will begin near the Basile junction, the true central crux of the work. To close the circle, to date, will be the second part of line A. The most contested, i.e. the one that should pass on Via Roma and the central part of Via Libertà.
The tram and the problems with Amat’s budget
A maxi-work strongly supported by the former mayor Leoluca Orlando and the former councilor Giusto Catania, also supported by the current municipal administration of Roberto Lagalla, not without some changes to the priorities of the tram system. Maurizio Carta, current councilor for Sustainable Mobility, is closely involved in the project. To date, the Palermo tram system is made up of four lines (1,2,3 and 4), all managed by Amat. But for the company in via Roccazzo it was not a “good deal” at the moment. The data from the 2022 budget speak clearly. The accounting document was closed with a heavy deficit of 21 million euros. Of these, six derive from the structural losses of the tram.
Further resources will have to come from the Municipality
The hope is that with the completion of the project the tram system can generate the expected audience of 20 million users per year that the previous Municipal Administration expected. A fact that would make the work, currently incomplete, the main lung of local public transport together with the ring and the railway link. Today, however, the fact remains. Amat needs additional resources to support the tram. In fact, at the moment, the management of Ztl passes is not sufficient to cover the costs. Indeed, it even generated an unexpected loss of 3.4 million euros due to the failure to pay VAT on the passes. A bloodletting on which President Mistretta announced on Tuesday in Rome that he will ask for an integration from the Municipality of Palermo, probably in the context of the service contract.
The current performance of the tram system
But what is the performance of the tram system today? They were supplied by Giuseppe Mistretta himself. The president of Amat in fact intervened, together with Marco Ciralli, in the Tv 2000 broadcast “Sono Noi”, through a connection created by the Notarbartolo station. “Around 7,500 users use the tram every day – underlined the representative of Amat -. The objective is to remove cars from circulation, moving towards a process of sustainable urban mobility. The tram system will make up 75% of this project.” With regard to the costs of the work, Mistretta underlines that “it took 320 million euros, plus 50 for the purchase of the vehicles. When fully completed, the structure should cost around 1 billion, becoming one of the largest tram infrastructures in Italy.”
“First five lines ready by 2028”
The other big issue concerns timing. As is known, the city of Palermo certainly does not shine in the execution of public works. It was the engineer Marco Ciralli who provided data in this sense who, to the microphones of the Roman TV and for the attention of those present, declared: “We aim to build ten new tram lines – declared Ciralli -. The first works should begin after the summer. The goal is to complete the first five lines within four years“. That is, according to the timelines provided previously, by September 2028.
The new structure of works on the tram system
The reference is to the first five lines to be created in phase two, as provided for in the addendum to the PUMS. The new structure of the tram works takes into account the economic resources currently available and the changes made in the last two years by the mayor Roberto Lagalla and the councilor Maurizio Carta. The last major modification affected line A. Originally, the work was to be carried out all together, extending from the Central Station towards the Renzo Barbera stadium over a route of 11 kilometres. But already in the Orlando era there was an endless series of controversies. In particular, the passages of the tram section on via Roma and on the most central part of via Libertà were contested. The opposition at the time, now Lagalla’s majority, had even voted to exclude line A from the three-year public works plan, only to then readmit it in the following year.
Changes in the Lagalla era
But the controversies did not subside, re-exploding even in the Lagalla era. Even the mayor, on more than one occasion, spoke of “further reasoning” to be done on line A, envisaging a possible integration of local public transport with the use of electric buses, the purchase of which is included in the latest three-year plan of public works voted in the City Council. And even the latest resolutions that affected the tram system seem to be moving in this direction. In June 2023, the Council voted to invert priorities on lines A, B and C, relegating line A to last place. However, with the addendum to the PUMS adopted a few days ago, line A was broken into two sections.
The priorities of phase 1
In the first phase of the works on the new lines of the tram system, the passages on Via Roma and the central part of Via Libertà were excluded. Line A was thus limited to the stretch that goes from Piazza Alberigo Gentili to Via Croce Rossa. A “revolution” on the order of work carried out once the Ministry of Transport had been consulted and based on the current resources available. Line C will take precedence, as planned. The most advanced one in terms of design and whose works will start in September 2024.
Then it will be the turn of line B, that is, the one that will connect the Notarbartolo station to the Giachery station. At that point it will be the turn of the remaining part of line A, followed closely by the E1 line (Stadium-France) and from F line (Central Station – Giachery Station). The latter operation was leaked in recent weeks by the Second Commission of the Municipality and justified by the need to close the tram ring.
On Via Roma and Via Libertà there is still hope
Is it all over for the tram in Via Roma and the remaining part of Via Libertà? At first it might seem that way. In reality, at the moment the issue seems to have only been postponed. The remaining section of line A is in fact still present. In fact, phase two includes the works of E2 line, which will guarantee a direct connection between the Central Station and the seaside village of Mondello; interventions on D line, even if on this last section, we read in the addendum to the PUMS, there are “important environmental constraints with the need to subject the project to an Environmental Impact Assessment”; the works on G linewhich in turn will connect the seaside village of Sferracavallo and finally, in the last place, the last part of the line Athe one that from the Central Station should connect Piazza Alberigo Gentili through a passage on Via Roma and Via Libertà.
The problems to be solved for the tram system
Whatever happens, the interventions relating to the most discussed section of line A will probably be postponed to the next council meeting. But, before then, another issue will also need to be addressed, namely that linked to the assignment of the tender for interchange car parks, which has already failed once and is closely linked to the organic nature of the tram system. This in addition to some bureaucratic problems. In fact, as stated in the addendum to the PUMS, “the Foro Italico car park requires a variation to the relevant urban planning instruments (under the competence of the Port System Authority) and, therefore, it is essential for these works to start the path envisaged by the Single Authorization Provision Regional (PAUR), with the related legal times”. It will begin in autumn with line C, in particular on the excavations to be carried out above the “architectural barrier” represented by Viale Regione Siciliana.
Tags: Municipality Palermo launches tram challenge completion date lines revealed BlogSicilia
