A new look beneath the Aurelian Walls of Rome: the Appio-San Giovanni area is set for regeneration, with less traffic, more greenery and cycling infrastructure. The goal: to create a linear park stretching all the way to the Appia Antica.
An important sustainable regeneration project is about to get under way in the San Giovanni-Appio district of Rome. The intention is to enhance the Aurelian Walls of the Roman era by delivering a project featuring green areas, pedestrianisation, bus lanes and cycle lanes.
Work on the construction of Metro C had turned the area near the basilica of San Giovanni into a building site for many years. Now that the opening of the new metro station is drawing closer, the council of Rome Capitale is thinking about how to transform the area.
The idea is to extend the Mura park in via Carlo Felice — a green area overlooking piazza di Porta San Giovanni, through which the Aurelian Walls pass — by pedestrianising viale Castrense. This would transform the road from an extension of the eastern ring road into a buffer against traffic chaos.
A number of one-way restrictions will be introduced on nearby streets named after Italian cities: via La Spezia will have a dedicated bus lane and a cycle lane running in the opposite direction to motor traffic, while via Taranto will have a two-way cycle lane. Largo Brindisi will be pedestrianised, with a small park and a bicycle parking facility. This is what Enrico Stefàno, president of the Rome Capitale Mobility Commission, stated in a video published on Facebook.
There have been some critical voices regarding the decision to close viale Castrense to traffic. "The closure of viale Castrense was imposed by the Capitoline Superintendency, which had only granted temporary use of the road owing to the closure of via La Spezia during the metro construction works," Marco Pierfranceschi, Mobility Councillor for Municipio Roma VII, told us, explaining what options had been on the table: "At that point the choice was between leaving it as a car park or carrying out a significant urban regeneration scheme by turning it into a linear park connected to the gardens of via Carlo Felice, including the enhancement of the stretch of walls for cultural and tourism purposes. The Municipio pushed hard in that direction."
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The project is part of a broader transformation process: the creation of the Parco lineare delle mura Latine. Five kilometres of route running alongside the protected Aurelian Walls, with greenery and cycle paths that would allow people to travel safely from the San Giovanni area to Porta San Sebastiano, where via Appia Antica is located (and which could in future connect with the route of the Grab). "The idea of reconnecting all the walls into one large linear park is already well established," Pierfranceschi confirms, "but at present there is no design to that effect, due to a series of obstacles that will require more in-depth analysis: for example, the presence of the market in via Sannio, an Ama depot (the company that manages waste disposal in Rome, ed.), and several sports facilities."
Once complete, the integrated linear park of the walls would be nineteen kilometres long, corresponding to the stretch of the Aurelian Walls between Porta Maggiore and Campo Boario-Ostiense, with the regeneration of the areas and investment in cycling infrastructure.