PISTOIA. An essay on how to keep the roads surrounding the capital under control, completely blocking the motorway junction with repercussions on entering the city from the A11, compromising fluidity also around the Virgo roundabout, the main traffic valve, and with chain consequences which, with a tremendous domino effect, reached the Florence-Mare motorway itself. It happened yesterday morning during rush hour, from 7am to around 9am with endless queues between the toll booth and Pistoia Sud, swearing at the rhythm of horns and significant delays for those going to work. The domino effect started with the closure of the junction heading north from the hospital until after Pistoia Ovest, due to maintenance and asphalting works for which the company Celfa srl was entrusted by Anas, the body responsible for the road. A company which, throughout the ambaradan, also received a fine from the Municipality for illegally closing the junction, in violation of the ordinance issued by Anas last 6 June.
The works, not yet completed, began on Tuesday evening and as requested by the Municipality and prescribed in the aforementioned ordinance, they should have strictly taken place from 9pm to 6am to minimize inconvenience. However, this was not the case, because due, apparently, to a breakdown in a machine and the resulting complications, the company was unable to dismantle the construction site in time for 6am yesterday morning and so panic broke out. .
Whether they arrived from the Vergine roundabout or from the motorway toll booth, in front of the blocked road the cars were forced to exit the ring road in via Ciliegiole, and then had to decide whether to continue from the inside or go back by taking the ring road in the opposite direction, to that already congested point. A dog, or rather a snake of cars that bit its tail and even immobilized the last stretches of the A11 in both directions, both from Prato (with queues already from Rose Barni), and from Montecatini, where the protests of the users tell an even worse picture, with queues already from the so-called Monsummano curve.
In reality, unlike the roadway restrictions from just before Viale Europa to the northern terminus of the ring road – ordered from 10 to 15 June – in the Anas ordinance the closure of the stretch from the hospital was foreseen starting from yesterday and not from Wednesday evening, as it happened. But beyond the details, the discomfort was already there. Some of the unfortunate victims vented on social media by counting the minutes in which they remained stuck in traffic, others published updates to avoid the same misfortune for others, while the more daring ones called for a class action for the damages suffered.
But it was also and above all the Municipality that made itself heard, which, having noticed the morning chaos, took action with its department and traffic office, contacting Anas and inducing the company to dismantle the construction site. But not only that, because the failure to respect the timetables set in the Anas ordinance for the execution of the works triggered the financial sanction (yet to be quantified) from Palazzo di Giano against the same contracting company.
«What happened is very serious – comments the traffic councilor Alessio Bartolomei – in fact we got angry and made our representations to Anas. The agreement was that the work would be carried out in the evening and at night so as not to create inconveniences, as had happened on the first day. It certainly won’t happen again, I’m sorry I had to fine the company, but the order was clear. We also received protests from the hospital, with staff suffering delays. Any emergencies would have been difficult. If they had warned us in time we would have thought of alternative signs and routes.” Yes, because another problem – beyond the “extended” opening hours – was that of alternative roads for those who, since Wednesday evening, found the junction at the junction for the hospital and the Hitachi blocked. Those who didn’t know Pistoia were left confused, because there were no signs indicating the road to follow to get back onto the ring road.
The ring road thus confirms itself as a troubled artery: in recent years there have been several cases of haywire traffic, the most recent one in February when a lorry hit the pedestrian walkway north of the Pistoia Ovest exit, requiring its demolition not before it was the road closed. L
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