Via Partenope, the heart of the freed waterfront, is actually an uninterrupted coming and going of blue car. On weekdays we counted 20, between 8 and 9.30. Without the necessary calculations, the average is one every 5 minutes. Magistrates, politicians and senior officials, in short, use the curve of Castel dell’Ovo, the most famous in the city, to elude the traffic of the mad Neapolitan traffic during rush hour. Stand in line between via Arcoleo, Riviera di Chiaia and piazza Vittoria no one likes it, of course, but some manage to avoid it. In an hour and a half we also counted two dozen cars belonging to ordinary citizens, the sly ones of Via Partenope.
Hundreds risk a fine and, in the vast majority of cases, even manage to remain unpunished. There are also those who take the seafront against traffic, in the direction of Piazza Vittoria. There are crossroads, and they are not entirely risk-free, considering the hundreds of pedestrians and bikers who use Via Partenope for what, according to the rules, it should be: that is, a pedestrian area. Of electronic gates not even a shadow, and only in one case did a police patrol “stop” the private car that violated the rules. To put it bluntly, anarchy is at home in via Partenope.
We are in the thick of rush hour traffic from office and schools. Via Chiatamone, via Arcoleo, via Acton, the Vittoria tunnel: all of Naples in the city is flooded with metal sheets. Thousands of workers who, more or less in a hurry, are heading towards their respective workplaces. On the waterfront, however, silence reigns at the same time. Not a horn sounds, not a puff is heard. The feeling of peace, however, is only apparent. The cars pass and how. Around 8, one Volkswagen with flashing siren it advances slowly at the crossroads with Santa Lucia. Once you arrive in via Partenope, slow down a little more, and then take it in the opposite direction. Then it proceeds faster towards Piazza Vittoria. A few minutes later, the identical scene repeats itself, even if this time the siren is off and we are talking about one Jeeps.
The liberated promenade, in the morning, is a parade of vehicles, cars, motorcycles, scooters, trucks, vans and vans. In some cases, with all due respect to the runners, passers-by and those who, at that very hour of the morning, take their dog for a walk, small funnels of cars are created, which also occupy the little remaining space of the cycle path. In short, those who experience the seafront as a pedestrian are forced to use the sidewalk. Just like at the time of the closure due to the collapse of the Victoria Gallery. We have documented, for example, the case of a BMW heading towards via Acton which crosses an ambulance (with the sirens off) heading towards the Riviera di Chiaia. There is no shortage of private vehicles that travel along the road that runs along the islet of Megaride: in the majority of cases they are large-engined cars. Porsche, x3, Alfa Romeo. Via Partenope, in short, is a preferential for crafty and privileged.
The liberated seafront has turned into theintermittent pedestrian area. Even after the reopening of the Vittoria tunnel. It should be specified, in any case, that there are vehicles authorized for transit. We are talking – logically – of the ambulances, of the forces of order, of the Asìa vehicles, of the trucks or of the cars used for loading and unloading goods for the hotels or restaurants overlooking the Mediterranean (including those of Borgo Marinari, behind of Castel dell’Ovo).
It should be noted, however, that even vehicles authorized to pass often take via Partenope in nonsense. The residents of via Partenope must be added to the list of authorized ones (in fact there are also underground garages). «Yes, of course that residents are authorized to transit – reveals a bartender – but only those who write on their identity card that they live in via Partenope are authorized. And not in via Chiatamone, Santa Lucia or via Arcoleo and surroundings».
In short, judging by the great intensity of the vehicular flow, via Partenope should have thousands and thousands of residents. And that is not the case at all. «There is no active camera – continues another trader – Anyone who passes by here can only be fined if there is a physical check by the traffic police, who however do not patrol via Partenope all day. People who choose to pass through here risk a fine, but many do”. The municipal police travel along the seafront, but there is no fixed patrol. Just as there is no electronic gate (certainly not impossible to install) that register the license plates of those who pass where one could not. Both factors that make the life of the seafront scoundrels easier.
