Mayor Abonante: “The Alessandria station becomes the gateway to Milan”

«Alessandria could become another station of Milan, if nothing else the westernmost outpost of its metropolitan area. But for this to happen it is necessary for the city to be involved in discussions and planning of the railway service between Piedmont and Lombardy. We can not wait anymore”.

Mayor Giorgio Abonante has a clear recipe that the city would need to adequately connect to the main rail transport hub in Northern Italy and is keen to reiterate it, now that the Piazzale Curiel station, through which 3.8 million passengers pass every year, RFI has announced a 16.5 million euro redevelopment plan. The mayor’s gist is: it would be nice if the redevelopment of the places corresponded to a level of services adequate to the rank of the airport and the city.

The connections with Milan, which have always been poor and which have been discussed for some time, are therefore back under the lens of Palazzo Rosso, which would like to break the isolation from the Lombard capital, towards which hundreds of commuters move every day. «The issue of trains between Alessandria and Milan has been under discussion since 2017 but we are still at a standstill – explains the mayor -. Through Slala we have presented a series of feasible and sustainable projects to strengthen connections across existing lines, including with a series of zero-cost interventions that dispel the usual screen of scarcity of resources, but they have all gone unheeded. It is clear that both the Region and the Mobility Agency have no intention of sharing the guidelines of strategic rail connections with us. We are not suburbs, as is often misunderstood, but an area on which Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria overlap.”

For this reason, Abonante believes it is a priority for the administration to be able to sit at the tables in which Lombardy and Piedmont draw up the railway offer in order to have a say. And Palazzo Rosso asks for more: «We need a single ticket, we have to enter into the Trenord tariff in Lombardy, from which we are now absurdly excluded. As the terminus of important routes, we are thinking of the Alessandria – Pavia – Milano Centrale, the Alessandria – Pavia and the Alessandria – Mortara – Milano Centrale, we should be able to make our contribution.”

On this front, the Municipality would like to connect the Alessandria station to the Milanese railway system, thinking of it as its potential western terminus. «There is insistent talk about the abandonment of Milan Porta Genova and from this perspective – says Abonante – we can and must become the terminus of the route to and through San Cristoforo, which means the connection with metro line 4 and, therefore, with Piazza San Babila in a few minutes and Linate airport in twenty. The ideas are all already there, we should be able to discuss them with Lombardy but we need Piedmont and Amp, who are totally absent.”

For the mayor there is a need to go beyond the “myth” of the Terzo Valico, which could offer little chance for connections in the area, and above all beyond the minimum number of trains now guaranteed by the contract between Piedmont and Trenitalia, with the run to Milan at 7.08am and the return from Centrale at 6.30pm and a pair of Asti – Milan trains introduced in the middle of the day. «With Asti we should be able to have our say on the railway planning between Piedmont and Lombardy, also keeping in mind the need for local bus connections” says Abonante, turning his eyes to the regional transport councilor Marco Gabusi, who has just been reconfirmed in the role.

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