27 May 2010

“This project will be part of history and the life of our city for many years to come.” That is what Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno, had to say, speaking along with Councilman Marchi at the start of the mechanised digging operations for Metro B1 on the stretch between the Conca d’Oro and Jonio stations. “It is a gift  for all citizens,” the mayor continued, “because they will have important minutes and hours in their lives that they won’t have to spend in cars in the smog. Instead they’ll be able to use their time for other things, because they will have used a speedy subway system that in a few minutes travels over a distance today it usually takes tens of minutes, if not whole hours to cover.” Hosting the event was Salini Costruttori’s Managing Director, Pietro Salini, and Board member Simon Pietro Salini together with the top brass from Roma Metropolitane. Addressing the engineers involved in the excavations, Alemanno credited them with “rejecting the scorn, the usual doubts and cynicism that says, ‘Start a project and who knows when it will end.’ Instead it’s proceeding right on time. In fact the work is ahead of what was planned.” The mayor, symbolically pressing the button on the tunnelling machine, in fact gave the start to the work on excavating the tunnel between the Conca d’Oro and Jonio stations. The dig, like all the others done for the tunnels already built, will be done with T.B.M., a procedure that avoids cave-ins and at the same time makes it possible to build the tunnel’s internal facing in reinforced concrete. The work on Metro B1 began in April 2006 and the operations are proceeding expeditiously. Today the Annibaliano, Libia/Gondar and Conca d’Oro stations are in an advanced stage of construction. The two galleries on the Bologna-Conca d’Oro section will be finished in September of this year, while the whole line is scheduled to go into service by December 2012.