Sometimes privatization’s profit motivation combined with a populist government does not benefit the state.
" …
Autostrade del Italia, the privately owned company that had the contract for maintenance of the A10 motorway, said in a statement Tuesday that “work was underway to shore up the foundations of the viaduct and that, as planned, a car bridge had been installed to allow maintenance activities to be carried out.”
Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli, a member of the governing Five Star Movement (M5S), called for the immediate resignation of the company’s top management Wednesday.“First of all the top executives of Autostrade have to resign,” he said in a message on Facebook. “If they can’t manage the motorways, then the state will do it.”
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It will not come as a surprise to drivers navigating some of Italy’s big cities like Rome, where there are potholes aplenty, that overall spending on road repair is way below that of neighboring France and Germany, according to the OECD.
The irony of the Morandi Bridge disaster is that a solution seemed to have finally been found, and agreed upon.
Earlier this year, the EU finally approved billions of euros in funding for the Gronda project, which would take traffic off the bridge and out of the center of the city.But the election of a populist government in March injected new instability. Beppe Grillo, founder of the Five Star Movement, was a leading light in the “No Gronda” anti-motorway movement in Genoa.
Five Star dismissed the warnings of the bridge’s imminent collapse as a “fairytale” on its official website. The article has since been taken down, but can be seen on web archives.
superposition almost 6 years ago
Sometimes privatization’s profit motivation combined with a populist government does not benefit the state.
" …
Autostrade del Italia, the privately owned company that had the contract for maintenance of the A10 motorway, said in a statement Tuesday that “work was underway to shore up the foundations of the viaduct and that, as planned, a car bridge had been installed to allow maintenance activities to be carried out.”
Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli, a member of the governing Five Star Movement (M5S), called for the immediate resignation of the company’s top management Wednesday.“First of all the top executives of Autostrade have to resign,” he said in a message on Facebook. “If they can’t manage the motorways, then the state will do it.”
…
It will not come as a surprise to drivers navigating some of Italy’s big cities like Rome, where there are potholes aplenty, that overall spending on road repair is way below that of neighboring France and Germany, according to the OECD.
The irony of the Morandi Bridge disaster is that a solution seemed to have finally been found, and agreed upon.
Earlier this year, the EU finally approved billions of euros in funding for the Gronda project, which would take traffic off the bridge and out of the center of the city.But the election of a populist government in March injected new instability. Beppe Grillo, founder of the Five Star Movement, was a leading light in the “No Gronda” anti-motorway movement in Genoa.
Five Star dismissed the warnings of the bridge’s imminent collapse as a “fairytale” on its official website. The article has since been taken down, but can be seen on web archives.
…"
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/15/europe/italy-bridge-warning-fallout-intl/index.html
Bex Premium Member almost 6 years ago
Did the roman bridge have to support the same daily weight of modern vehicles that the 50 year old bridge did?