Ancisi (LpRa): Deadly cruise traffic overwhelms via Molo Sanfilippo

“Lista per Ravenna has filed, at the presidency of the Ravenna municipal council, an agenda with the following subject: “Deadly cruise traffic overwhelms a residential street in Porto Corsini”. It will be discussed shortly in council commissions no. 8 “Mobility/Traffic” and n. 9 “Porto”, to be subsequently discussed and voted on in the City Council.

The laying of the foundation stone of the new cruise terminal is imminent in Porto Corsini – we read in the introduction – a sort of airport station to be built on 180 thousand square meters of beach. More than a celebration, it will be a mourning for via Molo San Filippo, located on the side of the Candiano canal, 700 meters of narrow roadway without a cycle/pedestrian path, on which the thousands of vehicles serving the terminal intersect, arriving and departing. (buses, trucks, tankers, taxis, NCC), in addition to the approximately 600 thousand a year who use the ferry to and from Marina di Ravenna, as well as a thousand motorhomes heading to or leaving the nearby camper area. An infernal bedlam at uncontrolled speed.

Hence the following public appeal, addressed by residents to the municipal administration, reported in the agenda: “Dozens of complaints made in all forms, both written and telephone, to the Municipality, the Municipal Police and even the Prefect, have bounced like on a rubber wall. What use is the 30 km/h limit without providing adequate slowing down and speed control systems? They are all in a rat race to save time or earn more money. Why does the municipal administration continue to postpone any solution or even partial remedy to this problem? Fifteen years have passed since the cruise terminal came into operation, but even then an alternative road system to via Molo Sanfilippo was promised which would bypass the town. Now that the Terminal has become gigantic, the traffic from the ring road on our road has multiplied enormously, without worrying about any countermeasures that at least respect the right to life of its inhabitants, 70% of whom are over 65. The others fled from Porto Corsini, so as not to risk their lives, not to breathe poison and not to become deaf.”

Taking up and developing the requests made by the Mobility/Viability service of the Municipality of Ravenna to the Port System Authority already in February 2021, reiterated on 10 February 2023 in the Services Conference which approved the project of the new cruise terminal, but up to now largely neglected, the agenda therefore proposes that the City Council address the mayor and his council with the direction to work profitably to achieve the following objectives:

1. prepare, as promised for 15 years, a Technical-Economic Feasibility Project, to be realistically implemented in the medium/long term, which identifies an alternative route to via Molo Sanfilippo for the exit from the town of vehicles heading to the cruise terminal;
2. prepare in the short/medium term, as announced, the Technical-Economic Feasibility Project of a new stretch of road on the side of the Candiano canal, starting from the entrance to the town (see the yellow arrow), which partially raises via Molo Sanfilippo from the current two-way traffic of its oppressive vehicular traffic;
3. immediately implement measures to mitigate the speed of this vehicular traffic, such as: strictly and constantly monitor compliance with the 30 km/h limit; strengthen, according to a plan drawn up by the Mobility/Viability service, the speed limit warning signs and introduce optical and/or sound devices and road surface treatments provided for by the art. 24 of the Road Regulations annexed to the General Urban Traffic Plan of Ravenna (vertical and horizontal approach signs, noise strips and other surface treatments that produce sounds or vibrations). Finally, carry out interventions on the geometry of the road foreseen by the art. 23 (such as raised road areas at intersections, raised pedestrian crossings, speed bumps/series of speed bumps), permitted in residential streets such as, despite its improper use as a ring road, via Molo Sanfilippo.”