Rome, goodbye to Via Nazionale's cobblestones. They will be replaced with asphalt

Rome will say goodbye to the cobblestones of one of the main arteries of the historic center, Via Nazionale. In fact, the paving (dating back to the 1930s) of the large street that connects Piazza della Repubblica to Largo Magnanapoli and that dates back to the 1860s-1970s will be replaced with asphalt: this, in the ideas of the municipal administration, to make the passage of vehicles and means of transportation easier. The cobblestones will be maintained only on the sides of the roadway intended for vehicle transit. The removed cobblestones will be relocated to other roads. Construction sites have already started.

“After 12 years we will completely redevelop Via Nazionale,” Mayor Virginia Raggi wrote on her Facebook page. “Goodbye sanpietrini, in their place there will be asphalt. The street, one of the busiest in the center and traveled by buses every day, will be safer for motorcycles and scooters and, with the new bike lane we will build, many citizens and tourists will be able to see the breathtaking beauty of our city while pedaling. Our Sanpietrini Plan is moving forward. As the sanpietrini are removed, we are carefully storing them in special storage sites before they are relocated to other streets in the historic center.”

Admittedly, the paving of Via Nazionale in many places was no longer what was laid in the 1930s: so many cobblestones had blown off and in many places ugly and conspicuous asphalt “patches” could be seen. However, the idea that the main road one travels on when leaving Termini Station no longer has one of its main distinguishing features raised a lot of criticism. Meanwhile, the opposition: Federico Mollicone, head of culture for Fratelli d’Italia and the party’s group leader in the culture committee at the Chamber of Deputies, says that “what Raggi is accomplishing is a national outrage to a monument laid in 1930 with unique red porphyry cubes that in 2030 would have been 100 years old. This year marks the centenary of the Unknown Soldier, who paraded from Termini to Piazza Venezia passing right through Via Nazionale, on this anniversary the mayor dismantles a historic monument out of ignorance and does not know that in 2012 with the same amount, 4 million three hundred thousand euros, the road was redone by the center-right junta. Sanpietrini are more ecological, cheaper in the long run and a national momnument that everyone envies us.” Fratelli d’Italia hoped, rather, for proper maintenance of the sanpietrini in order to make the road safer for vehicles, not their dismantling.

Roberto Gualtieri, the Pd’s mayoral candidate in the upcoming elections, is also harsh, but he focuses mainly on the modalities: “Mayor Raggi announces with unjustified enthusiasm the cancellation of the historic sampietrini of Via Nazionale,” he said. “Not having as usual shared the project, it is not at all clear whether this resurfacing also includes the displacement of the underground utilities, necessary to prepare for the passage of the TVA streetcar to be built for the Jubilee of 2025. If not, these works would be completely unnecessary because they would have to be redone. That would be most serious: a further waste of resources that we cannot afford. The pre-election construction anxiety of this Junta is proceeding without criterion, without planning and, moreover, without any sharing with the shopkeepers of this important street in the center of Rome. The shopkeepers in fact, already tried by the pandemic crisis, complain about the inconveniences resulting from the sudden closure of the streets, the storage of construction vehicles in front of the premises, and the impediments to passage. We have another idea of how to govern the Capital: clear and shared projects, without improvisation and with the utmost attention to limiting inconvenience to citizens, merchants and tourists. A simpler city to live and work in.”

Criticism also comes from the association that protects this specificity of Rome, namely the Sampietrini Cultural Association, which recalls how in the past no less than three superintendencies (the archaeological, municipal and state superintendencies) had appealed to the intangibility of the constraints placed on the street pavement of the entire historic center, with the result that the road surface was not to be touched. For Via Nazionale, however, a different course of action was taken: “For the new Via Nazionale interventions, envisaged by the Sanpietrini Plan,” the association explains, “the technical table made up of the State Superintendency and Capitol technicians unexpectedly gave its okay to the Municipality’s road plan, which provides, precisely, for the removal of the basalt pavement. The Undersecretary for Cultural Heritage, Anna Laura Orrico, in the Culture Committee of the Chamber, justified the intervention by stating that ’it has been verified that the intention of the planners of the Roma Umbertina was to create ’flowing paths,’ available to vehicular traffic that between the late 1800s and the early 1900s was becoming established’ permanently erasing a unicum throughout Rome.” The association asks “that the protection of all monumental road axes be guaranteed, implementing a new plan for their reconnaissance, verification and repaving, with the use of the new paving techniques available and with special attention to the evolution of the Capital’s mobility. To preserve both the historical identity of the city and the road safety of its citizens.”

Codacons, the association for the protection of consumer rights, is as usual very harsh and bombastic: “This is a crazy decision that does not respond to any logic nor to a real need to increase road safety,” says the association’s president, Carlo Rienzi. “The cobblestones are part of the historic heritage of the center, and their elimination represents a mutilation to a symbol of the city known throughout the world. We have decided to refer the matter to Unesco, so that in light of Raggi’s latest incomprehensible decision and the pitiful state of the historic center of Rome, whose cultural and archaeological beauties are overshadowed by the degradation and neglect surrounding them, the World Heritage recognition granted to the capital be withdrawn. If Mayor Raggi really wants to solve the problem of road safety, she should start from the suburbs and the elimination of potholes and asphalt disruption, which cause 30 deaths on the capital’s roads every year and 5,000 accidents involving motorcycles and scooters.”

Pictured: the construction sites on Via Nazionale.

Rome, goodbye to Via Nazionale's cobblestones. They will be replaced with asphalt

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