Today the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Danilo Toninelli, announced a new NAF$50 billion fund that has been secured by the MIT to be put towards drastically improving public transport across Italy's most congested cities, most notably Milan, Rome, Naples, Palermo and Cagliari, all of which have been rated as the top 5 most congested cities in Italy. As well as cities with the worst congestion the fund also aims to tackle air pollution by getting cars off the road through improved and expanded public transport, this will mainly target cities in the Po Valley which has some of the worst air pollution in Western Europe such as Turin and Monza, which don't have particularly bad traffic but suffer from extremely poor air quality, some of the worst in Italy and Western Europe as a whole.
Due to the large size of the fund granted to the MIT by the government the largest and most congested cities in Italy such as Rome, Milan and Naples will all be receiving significant expansions and modernisation to their metro systems in order to make travelling and commuting within the cities faster, easier, more accessible and more enjoyable than before, taking significant traffic off the streets of Italian cities. Smaller cities such as Cagliari and Palermo will see significant investment in expanding and improving their light rail systems which have proven to be extremely effecting at reducing congesting in the past decade that they have been installed for. Meanwhile every city that experiences above average congestion and air pollution will see new fleets of hydrogen and biofuel buses be rolled out in their communities along with new routes to cover a greater number of commuters, tourists and residents within cities across Italy. All cities that the fund is targeting will also see investment in new segregated cycle lanes, new bus lanes and carpool lanes to make bus public transport faster than driving, encourage cycling and encourage carpooling particularly during the morning and evening commute.
MIT Minister Danilo Toninelli has also negotiated with Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, the state-owned holding company that manages infrastructure and services on the Italian rail network and is the owner of Trenitalia, to guarantee the modernisation of stations and rail infrastructure and reopen unused stations within cities to increase the frequency and coverage of local train services within the metropolitan areas of cities to give another mode of public transport that will reach more people than before and reduce car use and thus air pollution and congestion.
Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Danilo Toninelli announced the CCF to the press whilst on a tour of car manufacturing plants across Italy: