“I take note of what Deputy Minister Edoardo Rixi said about the resources being temporarily taken away from the financing of the Raccordo railway project. I would like to stress his willingness to guarantee that the infrastructure will get financial coverage in the Budget Law regardless of what it will cost, even if it exceeds the currently allocated funding.” This is how the president of the Port Network Authority, Luciano Guerrieri, comments the news of the Ministry of Infrastructure & Transport’s (MIT) cancellation of 300 of the 312 million euros already financed by the Draghi government and earmarked for the rail link between the Vespucci Freight Village and the Vada-Collesalvetti-Pisa-Florence line, considered by everyone to be strategic because it strengthens Livorno port’s connections to the national railway network.
“Although this is an unexpected and worrying decision,” Mr. Guerrieri admits, “the intention is clear and, without calling into question the completion of the Project, it has been announced that the funding is to be reallocated even if the final cost should be more than what was originally budgeted in the project-design phase.”
Livorno port’s leading figure places great importance on this statement: “People who are familiar with the issues regarding the land where the infrastructure in question is planned to be built on and the hydrogeological repercussions related to the presence of the overflow canal know that the increase in the cost of completing the project is probable, if not obvious,” he says, adding that the Vespucci freight village’s administration, as the Port Network Authority itself requested, is currently carrying out a project design study to safeguard the land due to the presence of multiple infrastructural and civil infrastructure projects in the area.
‘I suggest an institutional technical roundtable should be set up immediately, preferably by Deputy Minister RiXI,’ Mr. Guerrieri urges.
“Together with the Italian Railway Network (RFI), the technical table will have to analyse the problems in order to complete the design of the railways in parallel and close coordination with the hydraulic defense measures. Its financing is closely linked to the construction of the tracks, the development of the freight village and safeguarding , on the one hand, the Piana di Collesalvetti and the city of Pisa on the other,” he concludes.
Translation by Giles Foster