“Cosenza, like Calabria in general, has long had an infrastructural gap that needs to be overcome. In this regard, the provincial capital must be equipped with an efficient transport system that facilitates the revitalization of the territory, with a method suitable for achieving the best cost-benefit ratio for the community. The idea is to implement an intermodal transport system that allows the offer of Trenitalia and Ferrovie della Calabria to be linked to guarantee a rapid and immediate connection between the city of Cosenza, Castiglione Cosentino and the University of Calabria”.
This is what the regional transport councilor declared Emma Staine at the end of a meeting held today at the RFI headquarters in Rome, with the top management of the company and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure.
During the meeting Councilor Staine presented a project proposal which provides for the possibility for the city of Cosenza to have a railway connection in the center and which will intermodally connect both the city and the university campus.
In detail, the urban area of Cosenza is served to the north by the state railway line, which branches off from the Settimo and S. Antonello crossroads, on which there are the Castiglione Cosentino and Cosenza (Vaglio Lise) stops; to the south by the regional narrow gauge line, in concession to Ferrovie della Calabria srl, which branches off from Cosenza station (Vaglio Lise) towards the Cosenza Centro stop, and further towards Sila and Catanzaro.
In order to create an urban railway system, with an estimated frequency of at least 40 pairs of trains per day, the Region intends to verify the feasibility of extending the state railway line to Cosenza Centro and vice versa. The extension of the regional line towards Castiglione Cosentino and in the future towards the University of Calabria area, will be created with an intermodal system through the use of electric shuttles. A first implementation hypothesis involves mixed operation on lines with three double gauge tracks.
“The project idea – Staine finally added – has been taken into consideration by the technicians and in the coming weeks there will be new meetings to start the verification of the feasibility of the proposal with the related times and economic costs. The peculiarity of the project – ha – is that an existing infrastructure is strengthened with a view to cost-effectiveness and environmental protection”.