The citizens will decide on Bologna city 30: green light for the referendum

The citizens will decide on Bologna city 30. On Saturday the Committee of Guarantors of the municipality of Bologna, the guarantee body for public administrators which has the task of expressing opinions on measures of managerial responsibility, declared admissible the referendum on the municipal law which, since last January, has imposed a thirty kilometer per hour limit on almost all the streets of the city of Bologna. The referendum was presented by the opposition parties to Matteo Lepore’s administration and over the weekend the green light was given to the procedure which will give the citizens a voice.

“Do you want the municipality of Bologna to move forward with the decision to create ‘Bologna Città 30’, as required by resolution DG 138/2023, by the ordinances in force since 01/16/2024 and by future provisions?”, this is the question to which residents in the city of Bologna will be asked to answer “yes” or “no”. But before getting to the vote, those who presented the proposal, namely Lega, Fratelli d’Italia and Forza Italia, will have to collect 9 thousand signatures within three months. A task that does not seem difficult considering that the city of Bologna has more than 380 thousand inhabitants and that the new limit imposed in many areas has sparked a very heated debate among citizens. However, the centre-right group spoke of a “boycott” by the municipal bodies as they declared admissibility only now, at the gates of summer, when citizens go on holiday and therefore hindering the collection of signatures.

If the deadlines are respected, however, the people of Bologna could already vote in the first months of 2025. The referendum to which they will be subjected is a municipal consultative referendum. Only residents within the municipality (not the province) will be able to participate and it has to do with measures decided by the local administration. It does not provide a quorum necessary for it to be valid and, above all, the result is not legally binding. In fact, if citizens vote to stop the Bologna Città 30 project, Lepore will not have the obligation to eliminate the measure. However, it remains a vote that is taken into great consideration by the institutions since it directly affects the feelings and opinions of the people. Another example of a consultative referendum is the one being worked on in the municipality of Catanzaro regarding the construction of the bridge over the strait.

Therefore, considering the electoral participation of citizens, Mayor Lepore welcomed the news in a rather positive manner. “We welcome the challenge. The consultative referendum will be a beautiful and further opportunity for participation and discussion. We continue to work calmly on this provision, which we believe is fundamental for saving lives, improving the safety and quality of public space”, wrote a note of Palazzo d’Accursio. On his side, the mayor has very good data in recent months regarding accidents and road accidents: in April, for example, the city recorded a 16 percent decrease in accidents and 73 fewer people were injured compared to the same period in 2023. On the other hand, however, the introduction of the limit sparked anger of many citizens and, above all, also of the Minister of Transport Matteo Salvini who has repeatedly defined this measure as “useless and ideological”.

The outcome of the referendum therefore appears far from obvious, as do its effects on the political life of the city. It is still early to talk about it (let’s remember, signatures are still missing), but if the residents vote to stop the project it cannot be ruled out that there could be important political consequences for the Lepore administrationwho made this measure our flag and one of the most important points of his mandate as mayor.