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Marco Chitti

@chittimarco.bsky.social

6K followers 290 following 6.1K posts

Researcher on urban planning and public transportation. https://marcochitti.substack.com/

marcochitti.substack.com

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · Jun 21

It took quite a while, but the paper about the history of high-speed rail planning in Italy that I co-authored with @beriapaolo.bsky.social is finally out!

It's open source, so you can read it at length (it is pretty long),

But here is a TL;DR: 🧵

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 10m

(I know that I shouldn't say this, that there are many people that feel disenfranchised by the system and that's why they don't vote. But I can't prevent myself from almost despising people that don't show up for voting out of lack of interest, cynicism or just plain ignorance)

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 12m

I'm not nostalgic. The Italy of the 1970s and 1980s was mired in political violence, mafia wars, and endemic political corruption and clientelism fuelling unsustainable budget deficits.

But people went out and voted. Today, many have retreated from practicing their citizenship through the vote.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 12m

I'm writing up an extensive case study of Bologna's transit priority policies, and when I write down the numbers of the 1984 referendum on a car-lite city center, I don't know if I'm more amazed by the turnout (90%?!?) or the % of yes (almost 70%)

It's just a world that no longer exists...

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 14h

Ummmm, it's not important enough, unfortunately, to have an interesting history

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 14h

Since I had run out of brainpower for more important tasks, I decided to dedicate the end of my afternoon to writing the story of Genova, its railways, its tunnels, and, of course, its port, finally putting to good use some historical mapping I had done a while ago

open.substack.com/pub/marcochi...

Genova and its railways

A mapped story of ships, boats, tunnels and freight trains.

open.substack.com

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 20h

I'm glad that Ontario exists because when I'm despirited by Québec provincial politics, I look at Ontario and I'm suddenly relieved, because it could be worse.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 21h

The divide and politics are not dissimilar to those of the pre-Civil War US. The Northern ruling class mainly supported protectionism to protect the early industrial takeoff, while the Southern one was mostly in favour of free trade, as they were exporters of oil, wine, agrumes, and sulfur.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 21h

Even if we consider it a deliberate policy of the newly unitary state, it was one broadly supported by the southern ruling class and their representatives in the national parliament, who strongly endorsed free trade to boost their revenues and status in an export-oriented agrarian economy.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 23h

1. yes, they used the same two tracks between Voltri and Sampierdarena.

2. The Turchino line is single tracked, as is the tunnel leading to it and the radiuses would have reduced the speed quite a lot compared to the new alignement.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Here are three maps indicating the routes that will be taken by different types of service:
- magenta: long distance (IC, RV, R) from the Western Riviera
- Cyan: Local trains serving just Genoa metro area
- green: freight traffic from Voltri port to the Turchino (existing) and to the Terzo Valico

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

so, the dark violet is the legacy coastal line that will be used solely by metropolitan trains.
The cyan line is the 1990s freight tunnel from Voltri port to the Turchino line.
Green is the new tunnel connecting it to the line from Milan, which will be used by the long-dist trains from the East

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

They don't share the tunnel. The 1900s Grazie tunnel is the Y-shaped yellow one. The metro (green) uses a portion of it, then diverges on its own new alignment. One of the new tracks for metropolitan trains (magenta) uses one leg of the Y to reach Brignole station

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

In the future, freight from Genova Voltri container port will use that same line to connect to the u/c terzo Valico base tunnel to the Po Valley (the two gray tunnels pointing north in the pic )

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

No, it's long-distance passenger traffic coming from the Western Riviera and France that will use the green connection to bypass the coastal line. Freight already uses the blue tunnel to access the Genova-Ovada (Turchino) line

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Well, the scope is not quite the same. Stuttgart 21 mais scope is to turn a terminal station for long-distance traffic into a through one, while Genova has already two through stations and just aims at separating traffic. And Genoa's budget is a fraction (700-ish million IIRC)

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Once completed in 2026-27, the project will allow for a better separation of different types of traffic, increasing the amount of freight going by rail out of the largest Italian port and to increase metropolitan service on the coastal line to up to a train every 6 minutes.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

The "sestuplicamento" between P. Principe and Brignole is particularly interesting because it reuses part of an early 20th century complex of tunnels, the Gallerie della Grazie, originally built to serve the old port, and already partially reused by the metro

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

The two other components of the Genova node project are the reopening of the Campasso freight line and marshalling yard and two more tracks between Genova P. Principe and Brignole dedicated to metropolitan trains.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Yesterday, the first section of the "Genova node project" opened. It's a new tunnel connecting the existing Monte Gazzo tunnel, opened in the 1990s to connect the new container terminal in Voltri to the Turchino mainline.

It will allow for the separation of long-distance from local traffic.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Yes.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Despite Italians' love for being ceremonial, the judges are generally just addressed to as "Mr/Miss Judge" (Signor Giudice). Very plain.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Boooooring.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Canada, proudly marching toward even more mediocrity.

Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Fun fact: the Constitutional judges are also known and referred to as "The Stoats" in the press and juridical circles because of the cerimonial dress they wear.

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Marco Chitti @chittimarco.bsky.social · 1d

Isn't this just how most constitutional judges dress?

The Italian ceremonial dress is not that different from the Canadian one.

Maybe more Cardinal and less Santas, though.

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