Traveling on public transport in Italy

Having spent two weeks in Italy recently (Rome, Verona and vicinity, Venice) I couldn’t help but make a few observations on the local transportation options (public and active transportation only – I didn’t rent a car).  As I have the privilege of living in a transit-rich, walkable urban community in the US, (Old Town Alexandria, Virginia) I didn’t experience the culture shock that more suburban Americans might feel.  But I certainly logged plenty of walking “steps” and experienced a pretty wide cross-section of mobility options.  (If you follow me on Twitter you may have already seen some of these comments.)

Rome Metro

Rome is a major world capital with an inadequate Metro network. For a variety of reasons – including historic problems managing large public works projects and the fact that you can’t stick a spade in the ground in the city without major archaeological consequences – there are only two Metro lines.  A third line – Line C – is under construction, and further lines are only distant planning objectives.  The result is that major parts of the city (Trastevere, for instance) are unreachable without a car or slow bus travel. 

When I rode the Metro recently I found the service to be generally efficient, although it was very crowded and somewhat rundown in appearance.  Hopefully the stars will be in alignment at some point in the future to give Rome the Metro system it needs and deserves.

Intercity trains

The intercity Frecciarossa trains, operated by Trenitalia, connect all the major Italian cities with fast, reliable, frequent, comfortable service.  Why would anyone fly instead?  Why can’t we do this in the US?

Regional trains

I found the regional trains in northern Italy to be very efficient, with mostly new trainsets, and very crowded.  Unlike the long-distance trains, the regionals have no assigned seats, so there is a scramble for seating (reminds me of the Amtrak Northeast Regionals!).  On the mainlines, where we were, there is always a choice of train types, and the regionals work great (and of course are cheaper) for shortish trips.

Local buses

I only rode local buses in Verona, but found them to be clean, modern, efficient, and – like all public transport in Italy – crowded!  A simple tap of your credit card will get you a trip, without the need of a pass or ticket.  However, sometimes the card reader wasn’t working, and sometimes it was simply too crowded to get to it!  In any event, the operator doesn’t seem to care.  Farebox recovery doesn’t seem to be a major objective!

Padua tram

I rode the Padua tram which (thanks Rick Steves!) efficiently connects the train station with the city center and the major tourist sites.  The equipment is modern, but the ride is very rough.  Fortunately, funding has been secured for upgrading (and extending) the route.  The most annoying feature is the paucity of signage.  On arriving in Padua at the train station, we had to ask directions to the tram station (why wouldn’t they have prominent signs?).  When we found the station, there was no system map or any indication as to which direction led to the city center.  Asking around at the tram stop (always the fallback when transit maps are not helpful) we were sent in the wrong direction!  As happens all too often, the user interface is terrible.

Venice vaporettos

In Venice, the vaporetto (water bus) is the workhorse of transportation.  It’s dependable (except during a general strike, as we found out in October).  The network is comprehensive, and service is frequent.  And of course it’s crowded.  As with most public transport we experienced, fare collection/enforcement is pretty lax.  I’m not sure there’s much they could do to speed up service.  And as a landlubber I’m always amazed that so many boats in a confined space, operated by Italians (notoriously averse to regulation), avoid frequent collisions.

Bicycles

I saw lots of folks on bicycles in northern Italy – people of all ages and apparent social and economic status.  There were few dedicated bike facilities, and most cyclists avoided the busy main streets.  The smaller streets are jammed with a chaotic mix of pedestrians, cyclists, cars, delivery vehicles, and motorcycles, a free-for-all requiring pedestrians to be vigilant at all times.  And as many of the smaller streets are paved with cobblestones or bricks the walk (or ride or drive) can be pretty daunting.  Nevertheless, bicycles are a prominent feature of the transportation picture.

Pedestrian streets

I experienced some completely pedestrianized streets in my travels, most notably Via Mazzini in Verona, a marble paved street lined with high-end retail that attracts throngs of shoppers and tourists.  More common are narrow, all-purpose streets that (as discussed above) attract all kinds of traffic, but are definitely not suited for through automobile traffic.  One of my favorite streets in this category is the Via della Madonna dei Monti in Rome, near the Roman Forum and Colosseum.  Two thousand years ago this street was called the Argiletum, and linked the Roman Forum to the Subura district.  Although all the buildings and surfaces have changed many times, I think the scale and character of the street is probably much the same.

Some concluding thoughts

Obviously my few tourist trips don’t constitute a comprehensive survey of public transport in central and northern Italy, but I do have a few thoughts:

Public transport in this part of Italy is very well used, which is to say it’s crowded.

Service is frequent.  I’m a believer in the Jarrett Walker maxim “frequency is freedom,” and the frequency of most of the services I encountered really made it possible to move around freely (except of course for intercity trains) without worrying about timetables.

Service providers don’t seem to care much about collecting fares.  Most services can be paid for using a credit card tap, but operators didn’t seem particularly interested, and fare inspectors were rare.

Equipment is generally relatively new and in good repair, although Rome’s metro cars and stations could use some freshening up and better cleaning.

Visiting a place where walking and public transport can get you to almost everywhere you want to go is great!  Makes you wonder why we can’t do more of it in the US!

 

Happy Earth Day!

 Yes, I know that the predictions of the climate scientists get scarier and scarier, but there are signs of hope. One that I find encouraging is the huge investment President Biden and Congress have made in electric vehicle charging infrastructure. For more than a decade I have been one of those encouraging government at all levels to invest in EV fast chargers. I have heard the arguments that EV deployment is somehow ineffective or a distraction or elitist, and I am not persuaded. It seems to me that electrifying the transport sector is a critical part of moving fossil fuels toward obsolescence, that deploying EV fast chargers throughout the nation is an essential step in making that happen, and that only massive public investment will get those chargers in place with urgency. Finally, the new federal program looks like it will make that happen.

I am also pleased that the federal program, as enacted by Congress and as implemented by USDOT, is designed to provide multiple benefits, including promoting domestic manufacturing, requiring streamlined customer access, addressing equity challenges, and adopting “comprehensive standards for the installation, operation, or maintenance of EV charging stations” (details in White House factsheet here).

As of now, state plans for spending the federal money have been adopted and initial funds have been apportioned, but we are still waiting to see major results on the ground. Having recently made an electric road trip, I can testify that access to DC fast chargers is still sketchy in much of the country. (Fun fact: there are no DC fast chargers in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, a major East Coast vacation venue.)

So, Happy Earth Day, and keep on electrifying!

Wisconsin is stuck in a freeway hole…and it’s still digging

 The I-94 Milwaukee freeway widening project has taken another lumbering step forward with the close of the comment period on the latest–and perhaps really final–environmental document. 

This awful project has been in an on-and-off mode for years, and I have been involved in the fight throughout. My team and I were pleased to provide technical support to the alliance of environmental, community, and transportation reform groups which submitted extensive comments to the record in opposition (news release with link to the full comments here).

Right now in this space I just want to make a quick note of (1) what is wrong with the Wisconsin DOT widening proposal and (2) what the alternative is.

What’s wrong with the widening proposal? Well, the comments of the anti-widening coalition spell them out in great detail. The defects include disregarding air quality regulatory requirements, failing to consider public transportation options, ignoring the impacts on communities and racial equity, not considering in any detail the changing work and travel patterns initiated by the pandemic, and many others. But what stands out to me is the negligent refusal to see this project in the context of the climate crisis.

It’s amazing to me that any transportation professional could advocate adding through lanes to an urban freeway at this moment in history. We are facing a climate emergency, and those of us in the transportation world should be doing everything possible to find solutions that drive down vehicle miles traveled (VMT) while improving people’s opportunities for accessing desired destinations in safe, modern, sustainable ways. Widening freeways is not one of those solutions. In fact, there is a growing–I would say undeniable–body of evidence that new and expanded freeways induce more VMT, promote sprawl, and discourage transit use, while ultimately failing to move people more rapidly across the landscape.

What is the alternative? As it happens, I was tasked by the anti-widening coalition with putting together a detailed alternative, which was published in 2021 under the title “Fix at Six” (available here). The two main pillars of the alternative are: (1) rehab the existing facility within the current 6-lane footprint (hence “Fix at Six”) and (2) build a robust new east-west transit system, based on Bus Rapid Transit and commuter rail.

The current legacy infrastructure, the I-94 East-West Freeway, is definitely old and worn out, and if we are going to keep it in use it will need work. Wisconsin DOT dismissed the rehab-on-current-alignment approach out of hand, based on its conclusion that it would not get automobiles moving fast enough along the freeway in peak hours in 2050.

Fortunately there are excellent transit opportunities in the east-west corridor, especially for two bus rapid transit lines, which can be located on arterials running parallel to the freeway. One is actually under construction! First-rate bus rapid transit, a possible rail commuter line, bicycle and pedestrian improvements, and better land use will provide real, sustainable mobility on the corridor, without the destructive effects of highway widening.

The highway widening vs. fix-it-first debate has now actually been dragged into national partisan politics, with the new majority in the House of Representatives threatening legislative action to roll back the relatively modest attempt of the Biden administration to establish fix-it-first as national transportation policy (story here). This could lead to an actual, straight-up highway widening vs. fix-it-first vote on the floor of the House!

Meanwhile, Wisconsin policymakers, you need to fix this!