(image: Roma Metropolitane)

Almost all the line will run along a highway, with the exception of the first kilometer, along Via Ciamarra. In this first kilometer, some interesting interventions will be made.

(source photos: skyscrapercity)

Thanks to this intervention, a previously anonymous road turned into a sort of Spanish Rambla.

Will it become a new center for outdor activities, like similar projects in San Francisco or New York?

We’ll see. In the meantime you can give your opinion in the poll:

(source image: flickr)

Luxury trains have come back to Italy. in 2005, SeaTrain has renewed some trains from italian companies FCU and Vesuviana and turned them into Roma Express and Napoli Express.

(source image: flickr)

Rome Express runs from Civitavecchia Harbour to Rome S. Pietro Railway station, leaving passengers in the very heart of Rome, and avoiding them an unnecessary and potentially dangerous detour through Termini.

Napoli Express runs along Naples Metro lines 3 and 4, from Napoli Porta Nolana to Pompei, Ercolano and Sorrento. A shuttle bus is provided between Naples Harbour and Napoli Porta Nolana.

On july 15, NTV presented its brand new high speed network. trains will link the italian cities of Bari, Bologna, Firenze, Milan, Naples, Rome, Salerno, Turin and Venice. The first trip is scheduled for 2011.

Arenaways is ready to start a commuter service in Northwestern Italy, Between Turin, Milan and the surrounding towns.

And in the meantime, the Orient Express is coming to Sicily.

(sources: NYT, Ferrovie On Line, click mobility)

(image: wikipedia)

On july 15, a new stretch of Milan S-bahn has opened. From now on, trains from lines S1, S2, S6 and S10 will have their sout-eastern terminal in Milano Rogoredo instead of Milano Porta Vittoria.

(source: ferrovie.it, urban rail)

(photo: model of Le Plessis-Robinson, from wikipedia)

Yesterday I showed some examples of smart growth in Spain. Today, we’ll have an overview of  what’s happening all over europe, with the winners of the 2008 Philippe Rottier European Prize. Here they are:

Best Operation of Urban Renaissance in a suburban city – Plessis-Robinson, France
Best New City – Val d’Europe, Ile-de-France
Best Reconstruction of an Historic Center – Historisches Gesellschaft DresdenNeumarkt, Dresden, Germany
Best Reconstruction of a City Center – Palermo, Italy
Best New Village – Poundbury, Dorchester, UK
Best Public Intervention – Rathaus Viertel, Gladbeck, Germany
Best Neighbourhood Center – Borgo Città Nuova, Alessandria, Italy
Best European Urban Plaza – Plaza del Juncal, Irun, Spain
Best New Garden-City – Heulebrug, Knokke-Heist, Belgium
Best Urban District – Akroken Campus, Sundsval, Sweden

Details of all project can be found here.

(source: A vision of Europe, cool town studios)

(sources: Jane Jacobs, Nazione Indiana, GaWK, spot80)

In the 20′s Monte Sacro was the typical streetcar suburb: a group of single family houses clustered around a main square, where the only multi-stores, mixed uses were, and where the tramway stop was. All around, only countryside and farmland. Then the city arrived all around, and Monte Sacro found itself as a center of a town of 200.000 inhabitants. Little by little, some single-family houses were torn down or retrofitted as multi-family houses, and the density has increased to the average of a downtown.

(sources: Reconnecting America, Dover Kohl, The Atlantic, Newgrounds)

To remember the line and its history, here are some videos of the rolling stock, passing in Porta Maggiore, the only transfer station of the line.

(source: tramvetti.blogspot.com)

“A small metropolitan train line that links the outskirts of Rome with the city centre seen through the eyes and the everyday life of the railwaymen who struggle to keep a service to the public guaranteed. By sideways looks, everyday micro-stories and personal memories, the film tells of the transformation of the edge of the city and the encroachment of the metropolis that has gobbled up local identities. The little railway, with all its obsolescence and maintenance difficulties, is the narrative thread by which the film outlines the landscape at the city’s outskirts, with its laid back rhythm and its entrancing blend of old and new fashioned ways, casting a glance both light and melancholy into memory to seek evocative reminiscences.”

(source: Tommasovalente.it)

(source: streetsblog)