Caluso, the residents pay the traffic damages to the houses

Elisabetta Navizzardi responds to the Municipality on the building in via Cesare Battisti «Situation reported in 2017». Dinner: “We will place bans on trucks”

caluso

The accident caused by a truck that a month ago had caused the collapse of a portion of the roof of a building used as a privately owned warehouse, finished on the road, brought the problem of road traffic in via Cesare Battisti back to topicality. A serious and underestimated problem.

Elisabetta Navizzardi, painter, famous for delicate watercolors, owner of the building and resident in the villa not far away, after having fixed the roof of the ancient farmhouse, built in 1834, wrote to the mayor Maria Rosa Cena and the Prefect of Turin asking for an intervention road safety, without sidewalks. «It is now four years, with the increasing intensity of traffic – explains the painter – that the canal of the building is uprooted by the passage of trucks and that consequently some tiles are removed. Only once had I been able to trace the driver of the heavy vehicle and the insurance had paid the damages. In the other cases I have always had to pay myself ».

Navizzardi, like other residents, has a house that directly overlooks via Cesare Battisti: in the absence of a sidewalk, the means touch the doors of the houses. «Already in 2017 I reported the situation to the Municipality – Navizzardi ventured – asking at least the blocking of traffic for heavy vehicles. Or the installation of poles to secure the entrance to homes. Nothing has been done ».

To better understand the gravity of the situation, we must then take a step back. In its stretch of just under a kilometer via Cesare Battisti crosses two other roads, via Alfieri and via Garibaldi. Points where pedestrian safety is objectively at risk, despite pedestrian crossings. The road axis then in all its distance is narrow and two cars pass with difficulty. If you then cross a truck it is necessary that the vehicles stop to proceed alternately. Not to mention the parking restrictions that are not respected.

In August 2018, after the investment of a pensioner (who later died in hospital) at the intersection with via Alfieri, the local police had experimentally introduced the one-way street in the street from the entrance to piazza Mazzini, up to in via Alfieri. It was supposed to last three months. Instead, in September the measure was revoked with the simple reason “that the lightening of traffic in the historic center included in the urban traffic plan was being studied”. Which to date has not yet been presented.

«The one way – reiterates the mayor Maria Rosa Cena – was not practicable because it created other problems for traffic. We heard the prefect and we replied saying that we will look for solutions to give an answer to all the residents. We will also meet Metropolitan City to place transit bans on heavy vehicles in via Torino, which currently do not exist ». –

Lydia Massia