STATE OF THE CITY (old)

republished here in new format.


I would like to offer my assistance to ATAC and the Comune di Roma as an impartial observer, trying to improve the quality of life in the city of Rome.

Something must be done to reduce cars. They are literally ruining the city. A multifold plan is needed to improve public transportation and discourage the use of private cars. The best way to discourage car use is to make it consistently costly and annoying and not sexy. Warnings on car ads: "the automobile can cause the death of urban life". Extreme taxation of private cars that are not needed for specific reasons: disabled, delivery, families with children. Make parking truly difficult, not like at present where the undisciplined park wherever they want and rarely pay the consequences. Don't allow double parking even for a minute. Don't allow private cars to drive in bus lanes. Enforce the laws already on the books. [The greatest absurdity I've seen recently: emergency no parking ribbons placed in a street where it was already illegal to park claiming special pruning of trees.]

Enforcing these rules would already allow public transportation to work much better, but it also needs a dose of discipline. No elaborate solutions are necessary, although they should also be considered. The basic problem is that of scheduling. Once a rational schedule for buses, metro, trains, etc. has been determined it must be respected. It's useless to say a bus passes every 7 minutes if a user often finds himself waiting 30. Why not use the same system used to control tickets, occasional spot checks. If a driver scheduled to leave at a certain time does not, he/she pays a fine. After 3 violations they lose their job. If the problem is lack of drivers or vehicles, don't schedule departures that can't be covered. Admit that a bus only leaves every half hour, but at least have it leave at a set time.
If the problem is traffic as one often hears, the creation of bus lanes and other forms of priority for buses could help a lot. Has anyone ever considered sirens on buses? A bus packed with people should definitely not get stuck behind a jerk in a private car. But really, if the problem is traffic, the bus should still pass every x minutes, unless the traffic is very temporary. When two or three buses pass in a row and are only a few stops from the Capolinea, there is clearly something wrong with the system.

Results of this strategy? A city with much fewer cars, and thus much more space for pedestrians, especially by being able to use sidewalks without undo weaving and detouring. Now, is this really so important? Does this not lead to a sanitized way of living? I suspect that if the streets are still filled with people, bikes, kids, dogs, etc. there is no risk of overly sanitized cities.