As Rome tries to provide transit options for its millions of residents and visitors, city planners and preservationists have struck a delicate balance between providing modern transportation and acknowledging the city's rich buried history.
"As this city begins work on a new, 15.5 mile subway line, massive earthmoving equipment sits idle while teams of archaeologists with tiny spades sift through dirt...Italy's robust preservation laws make it difficult to renovate, remove or otherwise tinker with anything deemed to be of historical significance, and that includes most of central Rome. The laws have protected the capital from newer architectural eyesores but have left it ill-equipped to deal with the stresses of a modern metropolis."
"Rome currently has only two modest metro lines to serve its 2.5 million people, leaving the city's streets regularly clogged with buses, cars and scooters whose pollution coats the historical monuments with grime."
"But successive attempts by city planners to unclog the center by building underground parking garages and tunnels to handle traffic have run afoul of historical preservationists just about every time a shovel has hit the earth."
"More than once, city officials have lost their cool with the preservation office...The standoff held until a few years ago, when planners and preservationists decided to bury the hatchet and work together on the new subway line. To reduce the line's environmental impact, the subway tunnel will be buried more than 80 feet below the surface, beneath even the earliest strata of archaeological remains."
"For the engineers, to work alongside the archaeologists isn't fast -- or inexpensive. The bill for constructing one mile of metro tracks in the center of Rome is more than $375 million, and the project won't be completed until 2015."
[Editor's note: Although this article is only available to WSJ subscribers, it is available to Planetizen readers for free through the link below for a period of seven days.]
FULL STORY: When Rome Builds A Subway, It Trips Over Archaeologists

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

In Urban Planning, AI Prompting Could be the New Design Thinking
Creativity has long been key to great urban design. What if we see AI as our new creative partner?

Cal Fire Chatbot Fails to Answer Basic Questions
An AI chatbot designed to provide information about wildfires can’t answer questions about evacuation orders, among other problems.

What Happens if Trump Kills Section 8?
The Trump admin aims to slash federal rental aid by nearly half and shift distribution to states. Experts warn this could spike homelessness and destabilize communities nationwide.

Sean Duffy Targets Rainbow Crosswalks in Road Safety Efforts
Despite evidence that colorful crosswalks actually improve intersection safety — and the lack of almost any crosswalks at all on the nation’s most dangerous arterial roads — U.S. Transportation Secretary Duffy is calling on states to remove them.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Appalachian Highlands Housing Partners
Gallatin County Department of Planning & Community Development
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
Mpact (founded as Rail~Volution)
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
City of Portland
City of Laramie