It is a head-on clash between the Minister of Transport Matteo Salvini and the mayor of Bologna Matteo Lepore.
This time the 'Città 30' ends up at the center of the competition, a measure which since last Tuesday, when fines and controls were introduced, obliges the people of Bologna to travel at 30 kilometers per hour through the streets of the city, with the exception of the main.
For Salvini, the speed limit - in force for six months but becoming mandatory a few days ago and already the target of many protests and controversies - needs to be radically revised.
"It risks being harmful to everyone, I will protect the people of Bologna" says the leader of the League shortly after his Ministry of Transport had made it known that the choice of 30 km per hour, shared by many Italian and European cities with the aim of increasing safety, "does not appear reasonable because the problems for citizens (particularly for workers) risk being greater than the benefits for road safety, which nevertheless remains one of the absolute priorities for Minister Salvini".
To overcome the problem, the MIT says it is "ready to start an immediate discussion with the Bolognese administration to verify alternative solutions and prevent forcing and escapes forward which then risk being denied even by the judges, as already happened in Milan regarding the obligation for heavy vehicles to have blind spot devices".
And in a long post on Instagram, Salvini defines that of the municipality of Bologna as an "ideological and senseless choice" by the Lepore administration, which has brought chaos.
“The mayor gave an extraordinary justification – comments the leader of the League – and that is that by going slower the people of Bologna will be able to hear the birds singing.
The singing of birds?
Let's let those who have to work work, come on."
Lepore's reaction was immediate, for whom the owner of MIT is a victim, like many others, of the "fake news" published in recent days, especially on social media.
False information that Salvini "unfortunately" also contributed to spreading.
“Unfortunately – Lepore points out – in recent days a social media battle has broken out against Città 30 and the city of Bologna.
There is a lot of fake news, as always the whole right-wing media circus has been unleashed - he adds - and this, rather than weakening the administration, is frankly harming the people of Bologna", frightened by the many "wrong information".
Among these, there are also news regarding delays in deliveries of life-saving drugs, slowed down by excessively congested traffic.
“A sensational lie” which nevertheless also reached Rome, says Lepore.
Also because in the guidelines published on its website by the Ministry for Infrastructure it is the MIT itself that invites cities and municipalities to introduce 30 zones to achieve the objective, set by the World Health Organization and the United Nations, of halving road deaths .
A plan, approved at the time of the Draghi government, as Salvini's deputy minister Galeazzo Bignami (from Bologna and at the forefront of opposition to speed limits) points out, and not by the Meloni government.
"The problem in the leadership of the Municipality is all here - says Bignami - they continue to think that they are in the national government".
The mayor, while defending the "courageous choice" of Città 30 on which he does not intend to take steps backwards, is ready to sit down with the Ministry of Transport and evaluate, case by case, possible relaxations of the measure in some areas of the city .
Lepore, however, shifts the focus of the discussion to another very hot topic, that of public transport.
And after a discussion with the unions, he is ready to "ask Salvini for a hand" to obtain "more resources" for the sector brought to its knees by Covid and the lack of revenues during the pandemic period.
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