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Shaping the Sustainable Urban Mobility. The Catania Case Study

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Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

Abstract

The increasing complexity of cities will require a greater level of integration between land use policies and transport planning. In this chapter, we present the case study of Catania, a medium sized metropolitan area in Southern Italy where recent investments are changing the urban railway network considerably. In spite of the lack of integration between land use and transport planning, this example demonstrates that the construction of a new metro line has a substantial potential for revamping outdated planning practices, promoting a comprehensive approach towards a strategic planning of the metropolitan area. The level of traffic congestion and the related environmental problems of the examined area make the proposed case study particularly relevant within the framework of sustainable mobility policies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A detailed study conducted in the Greater London area shows that there is no clear cut evidence that increased density and mixed-use development will produce more sustainable travel reducing distances and car share of total travel (Echenique and Donald 2015).

  2. 2.

    Source: http://www.mit.gov.it. The strategy is the first step towards the new General Transport and Logistics Plan (Piano Generale dei Trasporti e della Logistica).

  3. 3.

    Decree of Minister of Infrastructures and Transports (MIT) of 4th August 2017.

  4. 4.

    In May 2017 total population of the 27 municipalities included in the 1995 designation was 787,478 the main city was 312,255 (Source; Istat- Italian National Institute of Statistics http://www.demo.istat.it).

  5. 5.

    Source: City of Catania, General Plan of Urban Traffic (Piano Generale del Traffico UrbanoPGTU), available at https://www.comune.catania.it (in Italian).

  6. 6.

    Legambiente 2017.

  7. 7.

    The city ranked 100th among the 104 provincial capitals. Results of the survey include the following: only 44 trips/inhabitants/year in public transport (Milan: 469), 29 km vehicle/inhabitants/year as supply of public transport (Milan: 96); 69 cars/100 inhabitants (Milan: 51), 2.06 meters/100 inhabitants of bike lanes (Milan; 4, 5); 0.19 sqm/inhabitants of pedestrian areas (Milan: 0.46) (cfr. https://www.legambiente.it/sites/default/files/docs/ecosistema_urbano_2017_dossier.pdf, downloaded 4 November 2012.

  8. 8.

    A word that means “around mount Etna”.

  9. 9.

    Trains initially ran every 20 min.

  10. 10.

    Source: www.circumetnea.it/news.

  11. 11.

    The three municipalities directly served by the metro line have a total population of about 126,000, 16% of the official Metropolitan Area.

  12. 12.

    2000 passengers/day, Cfr. http://catania.mobilita.org/2017/10/20/metro-shuttle

  13. 13.

    http://catania.mobilita.org/2017/06/08/

  14. 14.

    This paragraph shows a brief synthesis of a larger study. Data analysis was conducted by Agnese Strano as part of her Master Thesis, in July 2017.

  15. 15.

    The land use maps are one of the results of the research activity conducted, from 2001, by the Laboratory for Territorial and Environmental Planning at University of Catania (http://www.lapta.dicar.unict.it).

  16. 16.

    At that time the long range regional and national transport was mainly by rail.

  17. 17.

    The implementation of this disruptive road has been limited to the south west section, due to the high costs of demolishing large parts of the existing dense urban fabric.

  18. 18.

    The 1969 Master Plan was designed by Luigi Piccinato (1899–1983) one of most acclaimed Italian planners who designed several master plans in Italy and abroad.

  19. 19.

    https://formbasedcodes.org/definition/.

  20. 20.

    A private car sharing service started in Catania in June 2016 with 200 vehicles.

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La Greca, P., Martinico, F. (2018). Shaping the Sustainable Urban Mobility. The Catania Case Study. In: Papa, R., Fistola, R., Gargiulo, C. (eds) Smart Planning: Sustainability and Mobility in the Age of Change. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77682-8_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77682-8_21

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