The issues linked to the development of the major sustainable mobility infrastructures of the urban and interurban area of Catania were at the center of an operational meeting which took place in the Town Hall in the presence of the mayor Enrico Trantino and the deputy minister for infrastructures and transport Galeazzo Bignami, with the participation of the deputy mayor and councilor for mobility Paolo La Greca, the sole director of Amts Giacomo Bellavia, the general manager of the TPL department of the MIT and Fce manager Angelo Mautone, the general director of Fce Salvo Fiore, the managing director of Sac Nico Torrisi and the consultant for the Metropolitan City Ivan Albo.
The Catania “Knot”.
Mayor Trantino highlighted to the representative of the national government the need to accelerate the solution of some issues related to rail transport. Starting from the so-called Catania “hub” with the undergrounding of the Catania Centrale station and the doubling of the railway route between Catania Centrale and Catania Acquicella, but also the undergrounding of the Acquicella – Bicocca section to eliminate interference with the Catania Fontanarossa airport and allow the extension of the airport runway. Also planned is the regeneration of the real estate areas of the former Maintenance and Major Repair Workshops of Catania Europa and Catania Acquicella, which would allow the city to be reunited with the sea.
Link between Messina-Catania and Catania-Syracuse
Trantino also put forward the proposal to create a link between the Messina-Catania motorway and the Catania-Syracuse motorway, bypassing the urban area. Finally, the mayor has placed the absolute priority of creating a north-south public transport service, from the foothills area to the urban core of the city, a sustainable mobility method (for example the monorail) which is currently absent and which causes a huge daily flow of cars towards the capital.
Identify a design solution to connect the hinterland with the capital
And for this reason Trantino, also in his capacity as Metropolitan mayor, announced to the deputy minister that he had given a mandate to the Metropolitan City to identify the most suitable project solution to connect the hinterland municipalities with the capital and that already in the month of August there will be the first results of this great project which will then have to pass the scrutiny of the national government and Brussels for access to financing. Deputy Minister Bignami took note of every detail proposed by the mayor and the deputy mayor and, showing that he understood the need to proceed quickly, undertook to raise issues related to Catania’s local public transport infrastructure in the appropriate national forums, announcing that in October there will also be a ministerial tender for access to funding for new sustainable urban transport systems.
Trantino’s words
At the end of the meeting, the mayor of Catania Enrico Trantino commented: “The fruits of this meeting are absolutely positive due to the concrete attention we have received from the representative of the national government. After the various meetings we have had, I can reiterate that we are close to very important decisions for the strategic future of the city with the implementation of infrastructure modernization works that Catania has been waiting for for decades. We also presented ourselves today as a cohesive institutional team with proactive planning capacity, the only way to achieve goals that look to the future with an overall vision of the city’s development”.
In the afternoon, Deputy Minister Bignami also went to the industrial area to visit the AMTS headquarters and view the important interventions carried out in terms of sustainable mobility in the company’s garage.
