CATANIA (ITALPRESS) – The Municipality of Catania, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana and FS Sistemi Urbani, respectively leading companies of the Infrastructure Hub and the Urban Hub of the FS Group, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding aimed at strengthening the infrastructure and urban regeneration of abandoned areas or for sale owned by the FS Group present in the Sicilian city. The protocol was signed by Enrico Trantino, Mayor of the Municipality of Catania, Dario Lo Bosco, President of RFI, Umberto Lebruto, CEO and General Director of FS Sistemi Urbani in the presence of Luigi Ferraris, CEO of the FS Group and Paolo La Greca , Deputy Mayor with responsibilities for Urban Planning, Mobility and Relations with the University of the Municipality of Catania. The agreement provides for the establishment of a Control Room and a Technical Table with the aim of defining and developing the strategy and interventions. In particular, the companies of the FS RFI and FS Sistemi Urbani Group, and the Municipality of Catania, will work together to promote and encourage interventions to improve the efficiency of the rail and road transport system, through the improvement of modal integration, the mending of urban spaces of the city and the strengthening of the overall attractiveness of the areas (for example former freight yards and former railway workshops, also through the inclusion of new public and private services). “The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding with the Municipality of Catania – declares Luigi Ferraris, CEO of the FS Italiane Group – is a clear example of how the FS Group intends to design and create integrated infrastructure works that are first of all shared with the territories and that produce value and benefits to the communities involved.
This agreement is the beginning of a path that has the aim of providing citizens with connected and intermodal mobility services and redeveloping urban spaces that are currently unused, making them attractive and centers of services and useful functions”. “Through the creation of these Catania railway works – adds Enrico Trantino, mayor of the Municipality of Catania – will be able to benefit from rail mobility corridors, whether regional, national or international, to connect Sicily to the European continent. Interventions of fundamental importance for the railway system also in view of the Bridge over the Strait, which also have the extraordinary advantage of restoring to the City of Catania the relationship with the sea, denied for over 160 years by a railway belt which has prevented a virtuous osmosis of the collective well-being of the citizens of the Etna metropolitan area”. The Memorandum of Understanding provides for a series of interventions for the infrastructural strengthening and urban regeneration of the railway areas of the FS Italiane Group inserted in the urban and extra-urban context of the Etna capital. First of all, the arrangement of the Catania Railway Hub, a project which is divided into two phases: the undergrounding of the Acquicella-Bicocca section to eliminate interference with the Catania Fontanarossa airport, soon to be launched, and the undergrounding of the Catania Centrale station, with the completion of the doubling of the railway line between Catania Centrale and Catania Acquicella, for which the design phase is financed. Among the urban regeneration interventions included in the Protocol, a reorganization of the abandoned areas or those in the process of being abandoned is envisaged for the former workshops in Piazza Europa, the former workshops and the former freight yard in Catania Acquicella, and the areas that will be freed from the infrastructural intervention of undergrounding of the Catania Centrale station, following the financing of the investment. At the conclusion of this infrastructural strengthening intervention, urban regeneration projects of the coastal waterfront and urban re-stitching may be implemented. With the Municipality of Catania, in line with the PUG (General Urban Plan) being drawn up, collaborative initiatives will also be implemented to develop new public and private functions, improve modal integration, mend the urban spaces of the city and implement the overall attractiveness of the areas, also providing for the possibility of temporary reuse. In fact, among the planned interventions the focus is on the reorganization of abandoned or in the process of being abandoned areas, with the consequent implementation of urban regeneration interventions on the coastal waterfront and urban re-stitching in order to redevelop urban spaces making them attractive and of useful function. “A good 17.6 billion euros invested – announces the President of RFI Dario Lo Bosco -. We are creating the best technologies and we have ensured that in the new tunnels the maximum speed can be 250 kilometers per hour”. – photo xo3 Italpress – (ITALPRESS). xo3/vbo/c/r 22-May-24 14:08 .
