Bicycle networks as a new ground project. The case study of Montesilvano

The Research Convention between the Department of Architecture of Pescara and the Municipality of Montesilvano has as its purpose the identification of a Agenda of Guidelines for the Qualification of Bicycle Routes. After about a year, the first results suggest to conceptualize some issues differently. First, you have to define the terms correctly. In Europe, reflection on slow mobility is linked to the rationalization / reduction of traffic and is always linked to both sustainability and ecology. Multiple denominations: Soft mobility, Sustainable mobility, zero traffic mobility, dual mobility, durable mobility, Eco-movilidad. Each of these aims to highlight specific aspects and this, of course, is not without consequences, neither theoretically nor from the point of view of operational practice. Montesilvano's urban fabric was heavily influenced by the relationship with the large territorial infrastructures (Railway, Strada Statale 16, Highway A14) and urban (Asse Atrezzato). And it is part of a more general story: the one regarding traffic engineering which, since the postwar period, conceived the idea that only for large network infrastructures should invest in solving mobility problems. It is not enough. You need to come back to think about smaller networks and, in particular, on bicycle routes. Montesilvano is compressed between the coastal line, the large infrastructures and the Saline River and, with a superficial look, appears only as a compact figure. That is not the case. Working on the hypothesis that cycling mobility networks are the potential matrices of a new land project that regenerates urban space, triggering processes of retraining of crossed contexts, forces us to think differently. To be more careful about the specifics. To assume the notion of public space as central. These are the perspectives that the research intends to pursue. And which, in all probability, should be further reflected in order to broaden the look on policies for a still too much sectorial bicycle mobility.