American Embassy's new Sidewalk: Not for Walking

A sidewalk, but not for walking

The American embassy in Rome is housed in a grand 1890 building that was once home to Italy’s Queen Margaret.  It occupies all of a large, irregularly-shaped city block, with one side running along posh via Veneto.  Since 9/11, the building has been ringed by ugly fences and sand-filled barriers, a slapdash effort, we assume, to keep terrorists at a distance.  Those barriers and fences are now mostly gone, replaced by a wide, handsome sidewalk that surrounds the building.  Except you can’t walk on it.  That’s right: a sidewalk that isn’t for walking.  The sidewalk itself is bordered by a fence—handsome enough, and low enough to easily get over—but a fence nonetheless, and one policed by the guards that patrol the embassy’s several entrances.  

The embassy has effectively commandeered what once was public space around its building.  No parking for cars, and presumably no pedestrians, on the four streets that flank the grounds.  But Romans, being Romans, will walk in the street, and they are doing so now (see photo above), on the edge of those new sidewalks, sharing the busy streets with vehicles.  The expectation, we would imagine, was that pedestrians would use the opposite side of the surrounding streets, where the sidewalks are still sidewalks.  Most will--and some won’t, putting those walkers in peril.  Sooner or later one will be hit by a car or truck, and the embassy will have to justify building a broad sidewalk that wasn’t for walking.   
Bill

A Failed Underpass in EUR: a Brief History of Over and Under

This underground passageway is shuttered now, and probably has been for years, useful only for collecting trash and attracting graffiti. 

The "sopraelevata," an elevated intersection
on Rome's east side, completed in 1975

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  In the 1950s and 1960s, Rome was one of many cities to experiment with high-level roadways (the "sopraelevata," connecting Viale Castrense and Via Prenestina on Rome's east side--photo at right) and pedestrian underpasses, like the one under Viale America, in the suburb of EUR (photo above). 

The purpose was the same.  As traffic density increased, the elevated highways would carry vehicles over pedestrians and dense urban intersections, and the underpasses would carry pedestrians under busy streets full of cars and scooters.  In EUR, the tunnel under Viale America was designed to allow thousands of EUR workers safe access to a Metro stop on the south side of the wide street. 

The Buffalo Skyway, opened in 1955

Over and under projects could be very successful.  For example, in our hometown of Buffalo, the Skyway, completed in 1955, successfully ferried workers and other commuters over canals, a river, and a clogged lift bridge. 

But by and large these efforts to deal with traffic's consequences proved unpopular.  Just about everyone but us wants to tear down the Skyway, despite the wonderful driving experience it provides.  Seattle, adds Dianne, after much controversy is tearing down its waterfront "viaduct," as we Westerners call these things.  We don't know precisely why the EUR underground was closed, but we can imagine.  Over time, the passage became intimidating: graffiti, the smell of urine, predictable (for Rome) accumulations of trash, the threat of crime.  For some, a dash across the street was preferable to descending and ascending long flights of stairs.  And in Rome, the descent from sunshine into the unnatural and relative darkness of a tunnel, must have seemed not only odd, but contrary. 

It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Bill

The Tiny Trucks of Rome

In the U.S., where bigger is always better, nobody wants a truck that isn't capable of hauling an apartment building or, if need be, the Statue of Liberty.  See photo at left.



In Italy "small" has long been in fashion.  In the towns and countryside, tiny, 3-wheeled vehicles, often flatbeds, many of them running on noisy and polluting but powerful 2-cycle engines (mixing gas with oil) that are prohibited in the cities, carry wood, produce, building supplies, and sundries.  They're slow--they don't do more than about 30 mph--but they're inexpensive to operate, easy to fix, and for the farmers and tradesmen that use them, they're big enough to get the job done. 

Easy to park--here, in space reserved for scooters,
in front of the Italian House of Deputies (Montecitorio).

Small truck-like vehicles are common in Rome--again, partly because they're cheaper to operate than bigger trucks or vans, but also because parking space is at a premium and traffic insane.  They're not scooters, but they offer some of the same advantages. 

A three-wheeler.  Careful on the turns!

Many of these smaller trucks have only 3 wheels--sometimes 1 in front and 2 in back (unstable on turns) and, less often, 2 in front and 1 in back (better on turns, but more unstable generally). 

4-wheel Postal vehicle

The Ufficio Postale, the Italian postal service, is a big user of these vehicles for its pick-up and delivery services.  The one at left is a 4-wheeled model with small rear wheels and what appears to be a detachable door. 

This one belongs to a restaurant.  Dianne's there
for proportion. 

Others are owned by private businesses, from restaurants to flea-market vendors. 
(Ciarla, where we had dinner one evening, is on Via Appia Nuova). 

We thought about buying one to help us with the task of distributing copies of Rome the Second Time.

Unidentified trucks attract graffiti.  But then,
so does everything. 

Unmarked mini-trucks appear to be a prime target of beginning graffiti writers, practicing their "tags." 

Bill

A small flat-bed, used for hauling goods to a flea market. 

White Lines, Big City

No, this isn't Rome. We've never seen a newly painted pedestrian crosswalk in Rome, never seen the painter guys freshening the white lines.

This is by no means a trivial matter. Although crosswalks are hardly inviolable spaces, many Rome motorists will respect (tolerate might be a better word, or maybe "dislike less") pedestrians who cross the street in the crosswalk--that is, at the white lines. Romans know this, and some believe so deeply in the right to cross the street at these designated places that they'll venture into a white-lined zone without even looking.

The problem, we all know, is that Rome's white lines have nearly disappeared, victims of wear and tear and lack of attention, mere ghosts of white lines past, virtually invisible to the harried businessman in the Lamborghini, to the guy on his Bergman 650 with the cell phone tucked in his helmet, to the nearsighted pensionato (retired person), to the secretary late for work--to anyone, really.

Traffic experts seem to agree that accidents involving pedestrians would be reduced if the white lines were really white. But the responsibility to do this work lies not with the mayor or the Rome city government, but--so we've been told--with the more local "municipi," which have apparently decided to spend their money elsewhere. Don't wait up for the painting crew.

The photo was taken in Genova.

Bill