“The attention on Foggia is maximum”. Word of the president of the Italian Railway Network Dario Lo Bosco, who arrived in the city for a conference promoted by the MEP Massimo Casanova on the railway system.
“We must make a pact with local institutions to enhance the stations as local hubs”he said from the stage of the Santa Chiara Auditorium, aware of how important the metropolitan area of Foggia is “nerve, not only for Puglia, but for the South and for the country system”.
Imagine the stations as a “propulsive element, driver of new technologies, modal integration and optimization of the railway, road, sea and airport systems”. The future is network integration.
And the “large logistics platform for the Capitanata” it is the idea launched by the MEP who seeks a synthesis between institutions and territory, but must take note of the absence of local administrators, although the interventions of the mayor of Foggia Maria Aida Episcopo and the president of the Province Giuseppe Nobiletti were planned.
Only the majority municipal councilor Pasquale Cataneo (Southern Italy), an expert in infrastructure and transport, was present. Moreover, the event had been scheduled on the eve of the presentation of the candidatures for the European elections, when it is more difficult to separate political colors from a debate on development, which is also framed in the symbols of the League and Identity and Democracy.
“We have signed, as Ferrovie dello Stato, a protocol also with the Ministry of Sport, as well as with the University and with Minister Salvini – reported Professor Lo Bosco –, because we want health and well-being to be able to be practiced in dedicated rooms in our stations, even with basic gyms, opening them up to citizens with an agreement with the municipalities. Let’s start from Foggia”.
The topic of redevelopment was also addressed. RFI president Lo Bosco invited the University, represented by the rector Lorenzo Lo Muzio, and the local stakeholders, architects, engineers, landscape experts, to present an urban regeneration project for the Foggia station together with the municipal administrations and to the Region, and then move on to a ministerial table.
“We would be ready and happy to welcome these ideas, evaluate them and implement them with our Central Station Management and with the CEO, in order to carry out those projects that enhance the metropolitan system and the country system”said the number one of the Italian Railway Network.
“RFI is working in a very important way regarding the port of Manfredonia – revealed Armando de Girolamo, president of Assoferr and sole director of Lotras, a company that organizes freight transport in Italy and abroad, favoring long-distance rail transport -. He has already set up an interesting project for the reactivation of the railway connection, which becomes fundamental for the relaunch of the port of Manfredonia, especially used for bulk goods, which is very suitable, indeed, which sees the railway system as necessary as a support”.
Together with the expansion of the Incoronata platform, they are “two essential elements, which ensure that the province of Foggia can reconfirm what it has historically always represented – said De Girolamo -, a natural logistics platform, for connection and relaunch towards the North, but also, why not, with the Tyrrhenian Sea”.
