The northern Italian city of Bologna is trying to keep speed limits in its city center despite a court ruling overturning them and government opposition to the measure to improve road safety, Reuters reports.
After the speed limit in the city center was lowered to 30 kilometers per hour in January 2024, the number of traffic accidents fell by 13 percent and the number of deaths in traffic accidents fell by as much as 50 percent. This month, the Italian capital Rome followed Bologna’s example.
Bologna’s center-left mayor, Matteo Lepore, stressed on the 21st of January that he would stick to the city’s limit even after a court upheld a taxi driver’s complaint that the lower speed limit increased travel times and reduced his income.
The city is currently preparing a detailed order, which lists the justifications for the speed limits for each section of road,
as requested by the court, but it has also faced opposition from the far-right national transport minister, Matteo Salvini. The minister said on the 22nd of January that the 30 km/h limit and speed cameras should only be allowed in specific areas, such as near schools and hospitals, and not when an ideological war on cars is being declared.
Salvini told public television channel Rai 1 that sweeping speed limits cannot be imposed because if people have to get to work or drop their children off at school and have to drive on a two- or three-lane road, they cannot drive at 30 km/h.
In Rome, members of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party have called on the city’s centre-left leadership to lift the speed limit or face legal action.
The mayor of Bologna said after reading the court decision that the previous speed limit would be temporarily restored in some areas, but only until new regulations with lower speed limits are approved and the city can return to its long-term plan.
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