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Marco Chitti

@ChittiMarco

12 Dec

1/ Sometimes we frame technology choices in transit as value-driven choices (x is better/worse than y). This is somehow inevitable, as planning is a value-based, often prescriptive practice.
But we must try to debunk some preconceptions.

I'll try with trolleybus vs tramway

2/ To make it easier, I'll apply it to a concrete case. Again, it's my hometown, Bologba, a city that has envisioned to use both technologies to satisfy the demand of its trunk transit routes, and is finally going toward a mix of both.

3/ To begin: why buses, whether, ICE or electric, are not enough? The current bus+trolleybus network carries, in the urban core, 320k/day. But eight radial trunk lines, plus the inner ring, carry alone 234k/day, i.e. 75% of the entire ridership.

Read 19 tweets

Marco Chitti

@ChittiMarco

11 Dec

I'm going through a very interesting breakdown of costs for Bologna's new tramway line. 237m out of 509m € are made of hard costs (that don't include signaling and electric).

Of that, the maintenance center/depot is 79m.

Actual tram RoW is 77m€ for 16.5km -> 4.7m€/km

The depot is somehow bigger than needed (40 places for 24 tramways), because it will have spare place for the rolling stock needed for lines 2 and 3. But it's interesting to see that the depot/control/maintenance center is almost a third of the "hard" costs

There is a also a station-by-station (fermata) price-tag. They are 42m long with a shelter, benches, vending machine etc. On average they costs 120,000 €. Interestingly, ESS (sottostazione elettrica) costs 250-350K/each

Read 7 tweets

Marco Chitti

@ChittiMarco

10 Dec

https://twitter.com/nilocobau/status/1336894786070986760

I would add that standard station design doesn't mean "dull" or unpleasant. And another important aspect is that one must calibrate the design to the needs.
Brescia's metro costed 935M€ (including rolling stock) for 13.7km -> 70M€/km
It has nice standard stations w/o mezzanine

https://twitter.com/nilocobau/status/1336894786070986760

The "secret" to keep costs down is also to adapt the design to the technology. It is the same one of Copenhagen metro (AnsaldoBreda/HitachiRail), with 3-cars train, 39m-long. A tramway.
And most sections out of the city core have been built with C&C, at grade/trench or viaduct

Even viaduct/at grade stations are simple, very minimalist but somehow pleasant. And with a train every 3', who cares.

Read 7 tweets

Marco Chitti

@ChittiMarco

8 Dec

1/I'm enduring a 14-days quarantine, and I have a lot of spare time. So I will bring you around in a virtual quick and non-exhaustive tour of the variety of "rural" housing typologies of Italy, because, sometimes, we say "rural" in a too generic way among urbanists' circles.

2/ Those types are the result of the interplaying evolution of the prevailing type of cultivation, in a given area (rice, wheat, orchards, etc.) and the related tenure (large monoculture estates vs small independent ownership vs communal shared land for pasture etc.)

3/ To clarify, I'm talking here only of the sparse, isolated farm-type housing, not villages, hamlets or other clustered rural housing, that is different story. Again, you can see the typical North/South, mountain/plain divide that is typical of the whole story of Italy

Read 16 tweets

Marco Chitti

@ChittiMarco

1 Dec

1/How could service look like on the broad Northeast corridor if we apply the multi-tiered service patterns (and fares) currently in use in N-Italy and in the Germanic world?

A long thread with some random thoughts of how a better region-wide NE rail service should look like

2/ This thread comes after some exchanges in here over time and the discover of this private sector proposal for an improved Northeast corridor, that have some good points but fails at the overall picture.
railwayage.com/passenger/inte…

3/ Let's start from the inspiring model. Both Germany and Italy have a strongly multitiered rail service pattern that particularly suits the travel demand of "megalopolis", i.e. continuously urbanized areas with many important primary and secondary nodes, as the US Northeast.

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Marco Chitti

@ChittiMarco

20 Nov

1/ A bit of railway history for your Friday night

Genova (Genoa), the "Superba", a city whose urban history is definitely shaped by its geography and the fact of being a place of passage for the movements of goods for centuries.

A story of tunnels, ships and trains

2/ Genova is one of the Maritime Republics and, after Venice, the most important maritime power in the western Mediterranean sea for several centuries, a city of bankers and merchants. With no surprise, the symbol of the city is its 15th century lighthouse, the "Lanterna"

3/ Constrained between the Apennines and the sea, along the rugged coast of Liguria, it was not in a good position for the steam age. There were no inland water routes to connect the city easily with its natural hinterland: the Po valley, Turin, Milan, Switzerland and S Germany.

Read 21 tweets

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