NationStates Jolt Archive

I have a RL political problem.
The regional rail service of Lombardy and the italian railways are beginning the works to add a second track to the currently single-track Milano-Mortara railway. This is going to allow a large suburban area to be served by a frequent passenger rail service, thus allowing many communters to choose rail over car.

The mayor and significant fraction of the population of Corsico, a small municipality at Milan's border, is opposing the project their own municipal government approved about 7 years ago.

They say that they want the double track, but, instead of a simple double track running over the ground through tall noise barriers - like the current single-track railway does - the tracks should run through deep trenches and underground tunnels. This is because (they say) the population of Corsico will benefit little from having a suburban rail service - today they commute mostly by car or by bus, and don't see themselves changing. They say that, since the improved rail will benefit mostly people not living in Corsico (although Corsico has a railway station), they have the right to use the land currently owned by the railway to "add more value to the city" (sic). Of course, they require that State and Region pay (about 250 Meuro) to make the train run underground.

I've been in Corsico to take a look. Well, the current project simply uses land already owned by the railway; and the noise of the trains (running at about 30 m from the houses) is quite lesser than the noise of the buses running on the streets (less than 4 m from the houses).

I think it's a case of exploitation of a NIMBY syndrome used to cover a landscape exploitation project: "add more value to the city" means, as I see it, "we will use that land to build a road that will serve newly-built tall condominia" (like many municipalities in Milan's hinterland are currently doing).

What do you think? Do you have other examples?


I have to add another thing: the only direct taxation a municipality can enforce here in Italy is the so-called ICI ("Imposta Comunale sugli Immobili", Municipal Tax on Buildings). Hence, more buildings mean more money for the municipality - and tall buildings pay off more than low buildings using the same ground surface. This makes new buildings pretty interesting for small municipalities and their administrations, because they're getting less money from the State recently.

I'm thinking about Boston, Massachusetts' experience with the so-called "Big Dig." I tried googling it, but its history is so convoluted, and major events are so recent, I could not find one source that pulled together all of what I'm thinking of -- at least not in the time I have available to do the research right now.

Anyway, my thoughts are as follows:

The metro Boston area is a rather chaotic arrangement (by US city standards). It is composed of several independent small cities and townships, each with its own municipal governments and services, all mashed together by physical development randomly over time. No part of the metro area was developed according to a city plan. Compare that to New York City and its famous grid of streets, which was laid out as a plan over maps of Manhattan island decades before the southern town of New York and the northern town of Harlem were anywhere close to being connected and merged. That plan was made because Alexander Hamilton and others in New York municipal government envisioned development of the entire island in future and used old Roman plan principles as the model of a plan that was followed by later generations.

No such plan was ever made for Boston or its surrounding towns. Instead, it grew "organically" over time, following whatever needs or fashions or engineering developments were current at any given time. As a result, Boston looks and feels a bit more like an old European town than most other towns in the US. Its streets are all of different sizes; they wind and twist around natural landscape features; there are precious few main traffic arteries connecting various sections of the city; etc.

Moving traffic through the city has been a major concern in metro Boston since the 1930s -- since the advent of widespread car ownership. Traffic and parking are Boston's constant problems, and have only gotten worse as the population has increased. Recently, within the past 15-20 years, Boston's population has boomed -- more than tripled by some counts. The strain on the infrastructure of roads and public transportation is severe.

The Big Dig was a highway project to reduce surface congestion by moving the main artery roads and cross-town highways (in and out of the city) into underground tunnels, where they would have more space by being able to cross under buildings, parks, utilities, etc, while freeing up land for surface traffic and more commercial and residential buildings. Sounded like a good idea at the time.

The Big Dig was declared complete in 2007. At that time, it was already over 20 years behind schedule and more that US$20 billion over budget. To my knowledge, two separate sets of project managers are currently under indictment for corruption on the project -- three if you include the set involved with the suit for the death of one of the first commuters to pass through the tunnels, who was killed when an 8-foot slab of concrete fell off the ceiling of the tunnel and crushed her car, about two weeks after it was opened for traffic. A more spectacularly disastrous boondoggle than Boston's Big Dig would be hard to imagine.

And the best part of it is that as of now, the traffic capacity of the Big Dig tunnels is already obsolete. There are already so many more cars in metro Boston that the Big Dig tunnels will make no difference whatsoever to surface congestion.

Meanwhile, the cities and state have done little to expand the public transportation system and thus reduce in-town private car usage. They were supposed to, but they didn't.

See, while the Big Dig was in progress, highway and main artery traffic through Boston had to be rerouted through the surrounding attached cities/towns of Cambridge, Somerville, Malden, Everett, Quincy and others. This posed a problem of increased congestion and increased pollution in those places, so to compensate them for carrying that extra burden, the state promised to expand public transportation service further into their areas, thus making them more attractive places for residents and businesses to move into. Only the state never delivered on either construction or money for construction for close to 20 years. Five municipalities, including Somerville where I live, ended up suing the state and the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) a couple of years ago for delivery on the deal. Finally, we now have the public declaration that construction of expansion of at least one train line into my area will commence within two years.

Meanwhile, our streets are more congested than they ever were and pollution is the highest it has been since the bad old days of the 1960s (when Boston was one of America's most polluted cities). According to the state Department of Health, incidents of asthma and lung disease are rising alarmingly in Somerville, for one, and are directly connected to air pollution from traffic.

From what you describe, Corsico wants to take a proposed project which is a simple expansion of an existing system, using existing infrastructure, and which is designed to reduce private car traffic along a commuter artery, and they want to change it to a complicated new construction project, which will be expensive and take a long time to complete, causing disruption to traffic while it is in progress, and have the effect of increasing private car usage along that same commuter artery. The proposed rail project will reduce or keep stable area pollution levels from cars. The Corsico proposal would increase pollution levels by encouraging private car use. The proposed rail project would generate revenue in a straightforward way, from fares and possibly park-and-ride fees (if there is such a thing in Italy, where commuters drive to stations to connect with trains). The Corsico proposal would reduce such revenue and possibly force implementation of toll fees or increased gas taxes to pay for the project and maintain it afterwards. (NOTE: I made the comments about fees/taxes based on how the US does things. I don't know how Italy pays for its roads and rails, but I am assuming it is done by fees/taxes levied on private citizens who use the systems.) Because the Corsico proposal would take longer to complete than the rail project, it is more likely to be obsolete by end of construction than the rail project.

Based on my experience with US develoment projects, I would say the Corsico proposal would bring nothing but expense and conflict that the area will be feeling for a very long time. The proposed rail project would be far less intrusive or disruptive. The Corsico proposal would be a mistake, in my opinion.