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The USSR was that place where there were many workers and vehicles, but they remained parked. The demand for the fruits of their labor was unsatisfied. And politicians and bureaucrats argued for months, unable to unite the one and the other. To Gabriele Saija, who is 25 years old, photos of crowded buses and subways in Italian citiesDuring the first weeks back to school, they remember a little about the Soviet history that they studied at school. Saija in 2018 won a Confindustria award for its startup that does what Uber does with cars in private bus transportation. It had grown to 16 employees. And when the bookings went to zero in March with the first viral wave, he launched zeelo.co.it: offers private buses with spacing, tracking, sanitizing and temperature control. Amazon and other companies are already using it.
Companies without work
The businessman also wrote to the 735 Italian municipalities with more than 15,000 inhabitants to offer the same service with more than four thousand connected private buses. It could help reduce overcrowding when schools reopen. Positive responses: zero out of 735. Sajia was not the only one to receive these reactions, explains Riccardo Verona of the Tourist Bus Committee. In recent months, many coalitions of private transport companies, who were left without work, have come together Close the doors to the municipalities and regions. Public transportation has often remained crowded beyond the limits of the law; at least 180 of the 300 million euros destined by the government to rent them have remained inactive; thousands of available private buses remained in the sheds, with drivers unemployed. Italy was not ready for the fall recovery and the virus began to circulate again.
The half past seven
It was not inevitable. Already in April a report, signed by leading figures from the government’s technical-scientific committee (CTS) such as Silvio Brusaferro from the Higher Institute of Health and Sergio Iavicoli from Inail, indicated the problems and options to be taken: “A critical problem arises especially for large metropolitan areas regarding mobility at peak times, ”we read. The delicate points are already indicated in that text: it is stated that “organizational and preventive measures are needed to contain the spread of the infection.” In other words, more buses were needed in the morning rush hours, around 7:30, especially in the Rome, Milan, Turin, Venice-Mestre and Genoa areas. All the more because since the summer the Cts asks that the filling of the vehicles does not exceed 50% of the capacity. It was only at the end of August that the government will reach a maximum level of overcrowding of 80%, at the end of an exhausting negotiation with the regions.
The ordinance of the Veneto region
But in reality the latter, who have direct powers over local public transport, have never agreed. An order of June 26 from the Venetian council, led by the League, allows to occupy 100% of the seats and standing seats of the vehicles “in derogation of the obligation of distancing”. On June 27, Liguria, also in the hands of the center-right, allows travel with full seats. On August 7, the Lombardy North League expressed “its concern about the mandatory distancing of the media” and recalls (rightly) that all regions, even those governed by the center-left, share the same idea.
More places in Lazio and Emilia-Romagna
That is the day the government allocates three hundred million for the rental of additional private buses, of which only 120 will be used. To date, Lombardy has added the offer of around three thousand bus seats for half a million students and extra workers who have taken to the streets since September. Veneto eight thousand more (and only from this week) for the 250 thousand travelers who returned to travel in vehicles. Rome under M5S strengthens seven urban bus lines of 345 and does not offer transport services to lighten the metro routes. Emilia-Romagna and Lazio, at the head of the Democratic Party, also strengthen the supply of places, respectively, by 4.5% and 2% of the estimated increase in transport demand with the start of schools. And the government does not show the leadership necessary to undermine the agency’s protection of the monopoly of the public transportation companies they control. Almost nothing. So the photos of travelers crowded across the country, the virus too, but it is impossible to know how much congestion there really was: among the great local authorities of Italy, only Rome provides transparency in its critical points at rush hour. “I hope that next month’s partial lockdown will serve to better prepare us,” Iavicoli of the CTS now observes. Meanwhile, Saija, the entrepreneur, has found the only solution now possible for him: he eliminated two employees out of three and went into debt with the bank.
October 29, 2020 (change October 29, 2020 | 07:35)
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