"It's huge, it's open, it looks like an aircraft carrier." Marco Bucci in recent days has been able to walk on the new bridge - "Genova San Giorgio" - and confirms that he has felt a strong sensation, but still does not speak of emotion. "Maybe that will come on Monday, we'll see, if it rains as it seems it can camouflage any tears," he jokes, but not too much.
THE NUMBERS AND DATES of the Genova San Giorgio bridge
The mayor of Genoa and commissioner for the reconstruction of the viaduct on the Polcevera, in these two years, has found himself repeatedly speaking in public with his voice broken by tears, but on the eve of inauguration is focused on the last details that will allow opening to traffic as soon as possible. "We did what we had to do - he says - we continue to say that the bridge was an extraordinary work but it is a huge mistake, we did something that should be considered normal, I don't think two years is an exceptional time, I think it's a fair time, indeed we could have earned another two or three months if we hadn't had the complications of asbestos and bad weather ".
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Bucci does not want to minimize the work done - "exceptional", he reiterates - but is convinced that the "Genova model" must be applied to other projects in Italy. "From the best options to the anti-mafia controls not only on companies but on individuals, from the use of the European procurement code to parallel works up to Covid protocols, they say it was possible only because there was Autostrade's money; well when we asked Autostrade to pay, he paid: it is nothing transcendental ".
VIDEO - Flying over the new bridge
When asked if he would be willing to engage in politics at national level to spread the diffusion of this model, Marco Bucci replies: "I was the project manager, top management, for 20 years out of 35 years of work, now I have a contract for the Genoese for five years, when it ends we will see what to do, maybe another contract with Genoa ".
The pride of a worker: "I did it with these hands"
In the meantime he will remain commissioner, until the end of November: "When the work is completely completed". The first citizen thanks the workers "those of the demolition and those of the reconstruction, I have in mind that Bergamasco who was on the stumps of Morandi with the steel wire to cut the pieces of the bridge, to name one" and then those who were close to him , "my wife" mentions first, and then a long list of staff at the facility. "Never, I never thought that we wouldn't make it", says Bucci, sure that the next big piece will also fall into place: "The neighborhood under the bridge will change, the square of trees is ready to remember the victims waiting for the memorial, but also the project of the great red circle of architect Boeri is going on, I asked the government to give me the money left over from the aid for the bridge to invest them directly without having to return them to Rome, and it is one thing on which I count a lot because it would mean that the next day we can leave immediately with the construction sites ". The day after Monday, when - like August 14, 2018 - rain is expected.
That however will not create problems. "I don't think - concludes the mayor - that Genoa can delay the opening of the bridge for a little rain and then the real sailors meet with the rough sea".
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