In Search of an Integrated Mobility Project

This essay reflects on the relationship between infrastructure projects for mobility and territorial projects in Italy, on the basis of the authors’ own experience in research and planning of projects for environmental integration of the Autostrada Pedemontana Lombarda road system. Difficulty integrating mobility projects into territorial development and reform projects is very accentuated and deeply rooted in Italy. The country’s traditional attitude to technology, focused on separation of knowledge from know-how and characterised by weak administrative structures, has in fact added to the importance of institutions and agencies created for the purposes of specific projects which, outside of ordinary practice and normal administration, have temporarily represented a point for integrating knowledge and technique capable of producing potentially innovative territorial projects. This inevitably weak condition has also had some impact on the Autostrada Pedemontana Lombarda affair. The difficulties linked with poor quality planning, the role of the design agencies, the contractors and the expectations of the areas involved cast light on a number of original and difficult aspects of territorial integration of mobility projects. Beginning with a number of considerations on the Italian context, this essay looks at various aspects of the project and how it has been approached through development of the management process, and reports on its direct and indirect results. In conclusion the essay offers a number of keys to interpretation of the relationship between design, research and action in Italy, going beyond the specific case under discussion, and the limits of practice in Italy.