Saturday 4 May. The first motorists approach the new car park in Via Fara four hours before it opens. A sign that the balance between supply and demand for parking spaces in the historic center tips towards the former. Between 2pm and 7pm, there will be around sixty cars entering. «Parking Città Alta» is written at the entrance to the structure, which «enables a new way of protecting Città Alta», underlines the mayor Giorgio Gori at the inauguration. Why the launch of the garage, with 469 parking spaces divided into 8 underground floors (of which 64 will be rented for 90 years, the others divided halfway between rotation and season tickets)is only the first of possible changes in access to the historic center. In summary: when the ZTL is not in operation, nothing changes. On the contrary, when the Ztl is active you can only access it by car from Viale Vittorio Emanuele. And only as long as i panels at the Conca d’Oro tunnel indicate the availability of free parking spaces in the structure. In the evening, Saturday, the unscheduled: the panel at the car park in via Fara indicated “-999” spaces. For now, the gates are manned by the local police; fines from the end of the month.
Thanks to this system, which allows you to limit the number of cars entering the historic center while making it at the same time “always accessible”, even the “closing hours can be extended, there is no longer conflict between residents and traders”, adds Gori. «There is no Upper Town that locks itself down or always remains open – echoes the Mobility councilor Stefano Zenoni —. There is an Upper Town with an opening conditioned on a different parking offer.” From today, Monday 6 May. the 240 paid parking spaces along the Walls will gradually be reserved for residents. «The work will change the habits of citizens and facilitate tourism», he comments Enrico Fellipresident of Bergamo Parking. The multi-storey building, covered by a blanket of vegetation, is «much more than a simple car park. It’s the story of a dream”, reflects the CEO Johann Breiteneder.
As a result, you will no longer see stopped cars, not only in the Cittadella, but also in the Mascheroni and Angelini squares. Other effects of a work that cost almost 25 million euros in twenty years: «An inconvenient legacy», attacks Goriretracing the history of the car park, «included in the urban planning instruments since 2000», conceived by the administration of Cesare Venezianicapable of crossing those of Roberto Bruni And Franco Tentorio, who «in his 5 years decided to leave the matter alone». Gori claims the council’s choice “not to subject the administration to the risk of litigation”. And he responds to the protest of the No parking Fara committee: «If we had unilaterally resolved the agreement, we would have exposed the Municipality to a millionaire lawsuit».
Critical voices also come from Northern League city councilors Enrico Facoetti And Luisa Pecce. The latter is wearing a belt with questions and agendas against the parking in via Fara. The person who had no doubts in completing the work (the total surface area of the intervention is 3,275 square metres), however, is the councilor for public works, Marco Brembilla: «There was an abandoned construction site with 3 thousand cubic meters of polluted soil, brought in to contain the 2008 landslide». Brembilla emphasizes a topical element: despite the complexity of the construction site in terms of “location and conformation, taking into account that micromines were used to crush the rock of the hill and the cableway required maximum attention to suspended loads, we have not had any injuries serious (ETS Spa coordinated the safety of the construction site ed)”.
From via Fara, a staircase climbs up the over 31 meter difference in altitude to the panoramic terrace. From here, going through the tunnel of the anti-aircraft shelter, you emerge in Via Solata. Onlookers and motorists look at the landscape below. «The cost of 3.30 per hour? It’s a little high, but there is the convenience of being immediately in the historic center”, reflect two tourists from Verona. «It’s expensive – adds a couple of Austrian tourists -, even if it’s okay for the location. And then the car is safe.”
