Controversy, political attacks and amendments, but in the end the path is clear: Messina has its Plan for Sustainable Mobility. In the afternoon the city council voted and approved the act with which the face of the city will change in the coming years, including pedestrian areas, limited traffic zones and cycle paths. Eighteen votes in favour, eleven against, with the sole abstention of councilor Concetta Buonocore. The contribution of the Pd was fundamental, albeit with four amendments, and Ora Sicilia “allied” with the majority in support of the administration and therefore decisive on the outcome of the vote. The no to the Plan from Fratelli d’Italia and the councilors of the mixed group remains peremptory. Defending the project is the deputy mayor and councilor for mobility Salvatore Mondello, already the protagonist of several interventions in the previous weeks and ready to respond to doubts, criticisms and perplexities coming especially from the opposition.
Mondello: “The new Plan puts the pedestrian at the centre”
The Council gives the green light to important changes that will revolutionize the way we move around the city. The first step will be the definitive construction of the pedestrian area of Viale San Martino between Via Santa Cecilia and Piazza Cairoli. Its extension to Villa Dante currently remains frozen after the approval of the Dems’ request to postpone the speech to the next two years. News also for the much discussed cycle paths. A single route will connect Torre Faro to Villa Dante through a succession of sections already existing or under construction, then making room for promiscuous ones also in other more peripheral points of the city. Then the Ztl chapter with the creation of gates that will delimit the historic center and prevent the current flow of vehicles. The objective is to make the heart of the city less chaotic where at the moment the proportion is a parking space for four cars. The PUMS integrates with the Urban Traffic Plan and is essential for intercepting further funding necessary to create infrastructure and changes to the road network.
The comment of mayor Basile and deputy Mondello: “Virtuous path, overcome logics far from good politics”
“A path planned starting from 2020 with the De Luca Council and with a first adoption by the Executive of Palazzo Zanca in 2021, and completion of the process during 2024 with the approval by the Region of the SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment ), to which are added the Parking Plan approved in 2019 and the General Urban Traffic Plan approved in 2022. The city now boasts a virtuous triad of strategic and implementation planning tools on mobility”, said the mayor Federico Basile and the deputy mayor Salvatore Mondello express satisfaction at the completion of a virtuous path in terms of urban mobility.
“With these important Plans, in a medium-long term time horizon – continue the Mayor and Deputy Mayor – Messina develops a system vision of the city, of urban mobility and of the mitigation and adaptation measures to be implemented, proposing the achievement of sustainability objectives environmental, social and economic. A further piece of what has been achieved with respect to the electoral program and regarding the key objectives of the PUMS, Basile once again recalls, “are accessibility, safety, quality of life and environmental protection”. This is a tool that helps create an urban context in which every citizen feels welcomed and safe. The approval of the Plan is certainly a great result but above all a great beginning”, continues the deputy mayor and councilor for urban mobility Mondello. “There are many actions to be implemented in the short, medium and long term. The plan will act as guidelines for the implementation of all interventions on roads and public spaces, even simple maintenance, in order to create – explains Mondello – a synergy between infrastructures, services and policies for the enhancement of sustainable mobility”.
“We want to thank all the city councilors who have allowed the achievement of a great goal for the city of Messina, overcoming useless divisions linked to logics that have nothing to do with good politics”, conclude Mayor Basile and Deputy Mayor Mondello.
