As Roberto Gualtieri took on the mantle of mayor of Rome on Thursday, he announced plans to double paid parking spaces across the city and increase rates.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rome’s newly-elected mayor Roberto Gualtieri arrives at Rome’s City Hall for a handover ceremony with outgoing mayor Virginia Raggi on October 21, 2022.
Rome’s newly-elected mayor Roberto Gualtieri arrives at Rome’s City Hall for a handover ceremony with outgoing mayor Virginia Raggi on October 21, 2022. Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP
As the capital’s newly installed leader, Gualtieri said he aims to double the 70,000 paid parking spaces currently available in the city in a staged plan that will start with eliminating almost all of Rome’s 16,800-odd free or ‘white line’ spaces, reports the news daily La Repubblica.
While exclusively residential neighbourhoods will remain largely untouched, mixed-use areas with shopping complexes will have most of their white line spaces removed, to be replaced with fee-paying ‘blue line’ spaces.
READ ALSO: Centre-left’s Roberto Gualtieri voted new mayor of Rome
“The aim is not to raise funds, but to discourage car use by linking the reform to the strengthening of public transport”, members of his team told Italian journalists.
Gualtieri, a member of the centre-left Democratic Party, beat out right-wing candidate Enrico Michetti in a run-off election held earlier in the week.
A trained historian, Gualtieri served as Italy’s Minister of Economy and Finances from 2019 to 2022, and was previously head of the European Parliament’s economic affairs committee.
He officially took over from former mayor, populist Five Star Movement’s Virginia Raggi, on Thursday morning in a formal ceremony which involved receiving a sash with the tricolour Italian flag colours.
Gualtieri and outgoing Rome mayor Virginia Raggi wave from a balcony during a handover ceremony on October 21, 2022.
Gualtieri and outgoing Rome mayor Virginia Raggi wave from a balcony during a handover ceremony on October 21st, 2022. Photo: Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP
As part of his plans to free up Rome’s congested roads, Gualtieri said he plans to scrap parking season passes altogether and may authorise parking inspectors to hand out fines to drivers who double park (currently they can only issue penalties to those parked in blue line spaces without displaying a valid ticket), reports Repubblica.
Double parking or parking on pedestrian crossings is commonplace in Rome, and is rarely sanctioned by police.
The right-wing newspaper Il Giornale denounced the proposals as “a massacre against car users” in a dramatically-worded article on Thursday morning in which it described the new mayor’s plans to abolish season passes for drivers as ‘diabolical’.
READ ALSO:
Rome among worst cities in Europe for road safety, traffic and pollution: Greenpeace
Rome’s public transport is as slow as Bogota’s: study
In aiming to reduce traffic congestion by improving Rome’s public transport networks, Gualtieri has his work cut out for him.
Delays are par for the course, worker strikes are common, and public buses are so old and decrepit that an average of 20 of them catch fire each year.
A 2019 study conducted by the public transport user app Moovit found that Rome’s public transport is as slow as Bogotá’s, with passengers waiting an average of 20 minutes for their ride, and 39 percent of travellers required to wait longer.
Rome’s transport woes were among the major issues that dominated the mayoral race, along with the city’s longstanding issues with waste management, potholes, and flooding.
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Italy plans to stop ‘revolving door’ between judges and politicians
Italian lawmakers on Tuesday advanced a planned reform aimed at stopping the ‘revolving door’ between justice and government, as part of wider changes to the country’s creaking judicial system.
Published: 27 April 2022 12:38 CEST
Italy plans to stop ‘revolving door’ between judges and politicians
The proposed reform, which still has to be approved by the Italian Senate in the coming weeks, imposes significant limitations on the number of magistrates, prosecutors and judges looking to go into politics – a frequent move in Italy.
Under the submitted changes, a magistrate wishing to stand for election, whether national, regional or local, will not be able to do so in the region where they have worked over the previous three years.
At the end of their mandate, magistrates who have held elective positions will not be able to return to the judiciary – they will be moved to non-jurisdictional posts at, for example, the Court of Auditors or the Supreme Court of Cassation, according to local media reports.
Furthermore, magistrates who have applied for elective positions but have not been successful for at least three years will no longer be able to work in the region where they ran for office.
The reform is part of a wider programme of changes to Italy’s tortuous judicial system. This is required by the European Commission to unlock billions of euros in the form of post-pandemic recovery funds.
Public perception of the independence of Italian courts and judges is among the worst in Europe, according to the EU’s justice scoreboard.
