Elevators stopped or absentescalators down. Traveling by metro in Rome is a Calvary for everyone from passengers laden with suitcases to parents pushing buggies and prams. And even more so for f usersfrail, elderly and disabled. Inconveniences and broken systems are found on all lines, in central stations as well as in peripheral ones. Inaccessible stations they are found starting from metro A: lifts out of service at several stops. Inaccessible stations are found starting from Metro A, where the lifts are out of order at several stops.
It is an example Re di Roma, where automatic doors are cordoned off from a yellow barrier. On the sign hung above by Atac is written: «We have planned an intervention to adapt the system. We will build it as soon as we receive the necessary authorizations from the relevant bodies». Lifts are also off-limits by Furio Camillo, to which is added the escalator stopped because “awaiting testing”. In Lucio Sestio both lifts and escalators are absent, but next to the ramps with steps there is the stairlift, the use of which can be booked through the site of the municipalized transport of Rome.
History repeats itself on line B/B1, along which the stop is located Colosseum, where in the last week at least two disabled people have needed the help of the traffic police to access from Largo Gaetana Agnesi. To Hannibalian the elevator is forbidden. Unusable escalators are found in Tiburtina and Bologna. In the latter at least it is specified that “the works will end on 04/28/2023”. Plants out of service also on C: a Bog the escalators, a Granites the elevators. It’s not exempt either terms, the main railway hub of the capital. Passengers scramble up and down the steps when they find themselves in front of the yellow barriers, like Christy Almeida, 28, who holds her little over one-year-old daughter in her arms while her husband pushes the stroller loaded with bags.
«I don’t know how I would have done it – she says – if I had been alone. In every station there is a problem and moving with the child becomes a real nightmare because it is very tiring. Between the broken escalators and the out of service elevators we loaded the weights for the whole day, a real grind». In front of yet another broken plant, the scene is grotesque: when the station is crowded, a cone of crowding people is created. “Something broken, again,” protests Goffredo Manzi, 67, leaning on the handrail to go down the steps.
Also Ludovica Consalvo, 33 years old, he snorts as he lifts his trolley. On his shoulder he carries three other bags. «I live in Milan, but I have been in Rome for five years. When I’m away I always think I would like to come back – she says – but when I’m here I feel bad. The conditions of the metro sthey are disastrous». Must make a short journey, seven stops from Termini to Cyprus, where “I hope everything is working, since the stairs will be uphill.”
