There is another, the last important, green light for the great transformation of the tram line. It is the favorable opinion of the national agency for the safety of railways and road and motorway infrastructures which was the last technical obstacle to the main lot of the 30 million maxi investment that the Municipality has entrusted to the ATM.
Ansfisa expressed its positive opinion on 13 June on the technical restyling and that of the areas on the edge of the line. She did not express herself, but reiterated her opposition, to the so-called “trivialisation”, i.e. the reduction to a single track at Provinciale and at the Port curtain. There are a series of requirements, some very technical, which the group of designers who have been working on the executive project for some time will have to take into account.
And it is precisely because of this update that the start of work slips. The group of designers of the raa “Systra-Sotecni SpA – Systra SA – Architecnica Engineering Srl – Studio Mattioli Srl, said that they will be able to present the final version on July 20th and, in the month of August or so, construction could start . From where, however, it will be one of the “dilemmas” of the summer. There are two priorities with respect to the complex of activities to be carried out. The absolute one is Viale San Martino, the subordinate one is Piazza della Repubblica. The issue is that, with the postponement of the start of the works, the three or four months of construction risks ending too close to the Christmas holidays.
«It is an evaluation that we will have to make as soon as we have all the project documentation – explains Pippo Campagna, president of the ATM -. We would like to start from Viale San Martino and imagined that we could start at the beginning of the summer and conclude everything in the autumn. With this postponement, we need to understand if they can finish before the Immaculate Conception. If so, the priority of the pedestrian area will be respected. If not, we will start from Piazza Stazione and then go to the Viale.”
The administration does not want to ruin Christmas for the people of Messina and traders, but it also has to deal with a terribly tight deadline which is December 2025.
Among the indications contained in the Ansfisa approval note there are also those linked to the possibilities of creating traffic light priority. That system, requested by the entire city for 20 years, through which the tram can find greenery at the intersections, with rubberized roads, along its route. In recent decades it has never materialized and so the cars wait for a tram that does not arrive and the tram becomes a public service, subordinate to the private one. Ansfisa wants a system that will eventually automatically block the car if the priority does not work. But this system will have to be created by the Municipality with another contract and if it started in parallel with the restyling works on the line it would be a great gain in terms of efficiency and timing of a contract which has its origins, it should be remembered, in 2020.
