(ZENIT News / Rome, 08.23.2023).- On Tuesday, August 22, work began on the Piazza Pia overpass. This is a tunnel that will allow the surface to be converted into a large pedestrian area that will symbolically link the Castel San Angelo area with the Vatican via Via della Conciliazione. Currently Castel San Angelo and the Vatican are separated by a street that makes tourists and pilgrims wait several minutes before being able to cross it, due to the high number of cars passing through.
Rome’s municipal government announced the start of the work, which will take several months. It is also the most important urban planning project for the Jubilee of 2025. This work, which began in the last days of August, means a traffic disruption in the country’s capital, particularly in an area with a high number of cars.
The cost of the work is estimated at 70 million euros, which will be taken from the Jubilee funds. The tunnel will be 130 meters long: it is an extension of the existing tunnel that was built for the 2000 Jubilee, a few meters from where the current one is planned. The works, as mentioned, began on Tuesday, August 22 and will continue for most of the remainder of this year and the beginning of 2024 with 8-hour work shifts, day and night.
The current mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, said on the day of the presentation of the works that «This is not just a simple tunnel, but a pedestrianization, a major redevelopment intervention that brings together two places historically on axis, Castel Sant’Angelo and San Pietro. Via della Conciliazione is so called because it referred to conciliation with the Church. We want to move from ‘conciliation’ to an embrace between the city and the Vatican.»
