Transport

Lazio Region invests €800 million in Rome trains

27 Dec, 2019

Zingaretti says Roma-Lido and Roma-Viterbo rail services are "gross".

The Lazio Region is to invest €800 million in the Roma-Lido and Roma-Viterbo rail routes which up to now have been managed by Rome's municipal public transport authority ATAC.

Tweeting the news on 27 December, the Lazio Region president Nicola Zingaretti said it was time for "radical" action and that in addition to the massive injection of funds, the two railway lines would come under direct control of the Lazio Region.

The €800 million investment will cover the purchase of 35 new trains and equipment and will also see the reopening of the Roma-Viterbo construction site at Flaminio in central Rome which has been closed for the last two years.

Tweeting "ora basta" (enough is enough), Zingaretti said he agreed with commuters who used the term "schifo" (gross) to describe the Roma-Lido and Roma-Viterbo lines which are ranked as Italy's worst and third-worst rail lines respectively in the Pendolaria campaign by environmental association Legambiente.