Bologna, August 19, 2026 – “The temporary asphalt” has not yet been laid (work from Monday to the 29th), yet the opposition is already on the barricades, ready to make no concessions. Not so much about the intervention itself on via Santo Stefano and via Farini, with the historic pavement that will ‘re-emerge’ once the Garisenda construction site is completed and the extra bus traffic is avoided, but rather about the cloud of uncertainty surrounding the future of the leaning tower and the timing of its securing.
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Criticism from the center-right
On a war footing Stefano Cavedagna, MEP of Brothers of Italy: “After making the historic cobblestones of via Farini and via Urbana disappear, the Lepore Administration continues to commit a disgrace in the city – attacks the Meloni supporter –. A disgrace due to the Garisenda construction site, about which the Municipality has done nothing for decades: the tower is now in a critical state and the renovation timing is not even known. The many diverted buses and cars are destroying the historic surface: this is the clear demonstration of Mayor Lepore’s and his Administration’s administrative incapacity.”
Also stinging from the League, with the group leader in the Municipality Matteo Di Benedetto who in turn points the finger at “poor planning”: “I find it surreal that the Administration has still not even been able to define the end of the first phase of the works and the securing of the Garisenda area. Today another historic and architectural element of Bologna is paying the price. The choice to refuse Pnrr funds (five million euros allocated to the tower, editor’s note), identified by the government and undersecretary Lucia Borgonzoni, as well as the errors in monitoring the tower, continue to have negative effects that fall on Bologna and its citizens.” In short, for Di Benedetto and more generally for the League it is time for answers, which are still delayed: “The Administration must give definite times because vague promises are no longer acceptable. The restoration of the cobblestones, then, must take place as soon as the tower has been secured.”
From Forza Italia the city councilor Giulio Venturi partly applauds the Municipality’s ‘patch-up’ in the name of road safety: “The intervention is good, because the conditions of these two main arteries had become unacceptable – comments the Forza Italia member –. Yet a clear political responsibility emerges: the management of traffic and the planning of interventions should have taken into account from the start the effects this situation would have produced on the surrounding road network. Today we find ourselves having to spend additional resources to put another patch: how much has the continuous restoration of via Santo Stefano and via Farini cost in recent years? We are talking about roads paved and repaired multiple times, with a significant use of public resources. Bologna needs fewer emergencies, fewer temporary solutions, and more planning.”
