Reduction of traffic pressure, optimization of parking policy, support for active mobility and encouragement of urban regeneration with a view to Legnano becomes a city of safe coexistence for all road users. These are the key points of the proposed update of the General Urban Traffic Plan (PGTU) therefore, until 4 June, the deadlines for submitting observations, of an exclusively environmental nature, to the procedure for subjection to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) are open; which means that This is not the phase to present observations regarding aspects such as one-way streets, cycle paths and parking and everything that pertains to more strictly road issues. The proposal to update the document was drawn up by the PIM, the Study Center which already drafted the PGT proposal, and involved the transport engineer Mauro Barzizza and the engineer Francesca Boeri as project managers.
The PIM worked starting from the PGTU drawn up in 2015 and from the works carried out in the meantime to include specific improvements aimed at smoothing traffic and greater safety for all types of mobility. The works already carried out or to be carried out in critical points of the road system go in this direction, such as the raising of pedestrian crossings and intersections, such as Zone 30 which took shape last year in a quadrilateral of the Oltrestazione neighbourhood, the school zones created close to the Carducci and Don Milani primaries and the reorganization of Piazza del Popolo. And, again, to increase the safety of the most fragile mobility, i.e. pedestrians and cyclists, we will continue, especially in streets with a limited caliber, to work on the layout of parking spaces, a measure that will contribute to reducing vehicular speed. Also to reduce the speed of motor vehicles, tactical urban planning interventions will be used, i.e. that approach of regeneration of public spaces which favors their re-appropriation by the inhabitants, creating the conditions for safe coexistence between the different types of mobility. The PGTU update proposal also incorporates the active mobility interventions underway or soon to be implemented in Legnano, such as the Bicipolitana lines and the projects of the urban regeneration strategy “The school becomes a city”.
The General Urban Traffic Plan
The document is divided into three documents: the general urban traffic plan, the detailed sustainable mobility plan and the detailed parking plan. For the latter, the document identifies, following the analysis phase of the situation carried out neighborhood by neighborhood, possible solutions which consist in the reduction of “parasitic” traffic (that which goes around looking for parking) thanks to better information both through signage and the orientation towards areas with greater parking possibilities both through the identification of new parking spaces that can be obtained with a reorganization of the roadways. Particulate attention, in finding a correct balance between the different parking needs, must also be dedicated to organizing parking for residents. The document also defines the sequence of the implementation phases of the plan, distinguishing the interventions on the basis of the short, medium and long term. Limiting ourselves to some proposals for interventions in the first phase, it is worth mentioning the start of planning and redevelopment on the Liguria – Montalcini axis (with a change in the regulation of the passage, for which the current transit ban for unauthorized vehicles will be limited to the two “hottest” time slots: the slip road can only be traveled towards the outskirts in the morning and towards the center in the evening, while for the rest of the day it will be open in both directions); the start of the planning and redevelopment of the Sempione-Volta intersections (where left turns will be allowed for vehicles coming from Castellanza), Montecassino-Novara (interventions aimed at greater safety), Barbara Melzi – Via Pio traffic light system with a roundabout) and the start of the signage plan.
Comments and approval
Once the phase in which it will be verified whether to subject the PGTU proposal to the SEA is over, the period of observations will open on all aspects of the PGTU (therefore also those relating to road issues), which will also see the holding of public meetings in which the administration and the professionals in charge will illustrate the proposed plan. The document, once countered, must be adopted by the council and passed to the city council, which will first discuss and vote on the observations and, subsequently, the plan in its entirety. In the event of a positive outcome of the vote, the PGTU will be approved.
