A 46 million plan to put the streets of Palermo back on track: six road axes that will be the subject of works including Pallavicino-Mondello, Tribunal-Notarbartolo, via Roma, Children’s Hospital-Foro Italico, via Montepellegrino-Rotoli cemetery, via Messina Marine-piazza XIII Vittime, to which are added the works on via Liberta and via Crispi-Belgio (932 thousand euros for the first, 1.7 million euros for the second axis), which remained outside the framework agreement signed last last March 26th but that “nothing prevents them from being inserted at a later time”. This is Mayor Roberto Lagalla’s plan, presented during a press conference held this morning (14 June) at Palazzo Palagonia. Works for a total of almost 9 million euros, to which will be added around 5 million euros for interventions on tree roots and sidewalks which are creating quite a few problems in the city.
The municipal administration plans to start and complete the works by the end of this year and is also trying to change the register for companies that deal with underground services, announcing a first complaint through the municipal police body «against a company that an important company that deals with the supply of electricity excavated in a central place of the city without authorization – announces the councilor for public works Salvatore Orlando – he then added without naming names. The mayor later specified that the companies mainly involved “are Amap or Amg”. Orlando then recalled the serious shortcomings resulting from a past lack of planning: “To date we have set up a monitoring structure – explains the councilor – and carried out approximately 2,500 interventions on open potholes on the city’s roads”.
The mayor was furious towards some city councilors and the press, guilty of “incomplete information” and of not “reading the decisions, instead of limiting themselves to the documents that arrive at the city council”. The mayor then underlined that he had «witnessed an apparent and sudden emergency on the issue of the roads which, as is known, had not been maintained for over twenty years – underlines Lagalla – which is based on an apparent and imagined neglect and inertia of this administration. We have planned the interventions for some time, but it should be remembered that we found the 2019 budget as our last budget and therefore spent a year and a half to start spending a euro again. We must all take care of this city: I refer to the abandonment of waste or the payment of taxes for example. In short, we are all in the same boat and we row in this boat, then if there is controversy about everything, well this discussion is of little interest to us.”
The mayor then intervened on Via Roma, the third most dangerous street in the city with, according to the latest available data, 62 accidents and 58 injuries, accusing a committee and the vice president of the first district of being “self-referential committees” , showing off ideas and projects that «we are validating with the civil motorization», said Lagalla. These include a traffic light plan and “the creation of a cycle path”, much desired by cyclists who are now banned from Via Maqueda, but for which there are no certain times yet. «We need to study – said the mayor – work, prepare the procedures and carry out complex and bureaucratic obligations. A system logic is needed.”
«In this city, road maintenance has not been carried out in the last twenty years. There was no inaction on the part of my administration. We planned the interventions, but we had to get our accounts in order before carrying out the spending which, for the most part, we were prevented from doing until December 31st of last year. Now the money is there thanks to a framework agreement which is capable of up to 46 million”, said Lagalla.
«After having reinforced the technical areas that were unprotected with personnel – added Lagalla – in recent months emergency pothole intervention, the first patching of the roads and monitoring have been started which allows us to redevelop the main road axes of the city. Many construction sites are already open. With 25 million we are also intervening in the historic center for the relining and arrangement of special asphalts. We have drawn up a policy document that allows us to regulate the construction sites of all companies that work along the roads, both private companies and jointly owned companies. In the past we have witnessed interference and overlapping of construction sites that were not controlled. Meanwhile, with the Green Department we have defined a four million project which will allow us to repair the damage caused by the roots of the trees.”
