- Rome wasn't built in a day, and it apparently won't be rebuilt anytime soon. This photo was featured on on the CarTalk blog in 2014; in 2018, little has changed except the growing scale of the problem.

Roman Ruins: Car Edition

Rome has an infrastructure problem its motoring and pedestrian citizens alike are finding it increasingly difficult to ignore.

Potholes, sinkholes, assholes: If you're on the road, you're at risk from all of them. Recent scenes from Rome, though, make it clear that while this isn't a new problem, the city is experiencing an infrastructure crisis only matched by New York's inability to keep its subway running with any kind of regularity. The scenes, in fact, are pretty amazing; below we see the moment when a spiderweb crack becomes a sinkhole ravenous for some Fiat Panda blood.

The New York Times reported on the phenomena of massive sinkholes and their sneakier pothole brethren plaguing the streets of Rome on Sunday, but the city's reputation for rough roads has been growing for years. Corruption, bureaucracy and chronic mismanagement may be part of the advancing nature of the problem, but the recent rain-filled winter was the catalyst for so much recent press on the topic.

My new hero, Stefano on Youtube, made the video below earlier this month to document the state of the streets of Rome after it experienced three straight days of rain. Tooling around town on his Triumph Speed Triple, he takes us along for his daily commute. I have to say as someone who's never even been on the back of a motorbike, this was a real eye-opener. In a car, you grit your teeth and hope not to hear pieces of your exhaust or wheel covers being shat out the back of the car when you cross a pothole -- on a bike, you hope to see the pothole in time not to plunge into it and break your neck (or bike).

A bit about my new hero: He shouts out the genius of Ken Block, the inconsistency of word pronunciation in English, YouTube commenters who think he's a reckless biker, and is generally a good-natured curator of the city's woes. His distress is genuine, a lament about why things can't be fixed properly in one of the richest capital cities in the world; it will ring true for anyone who's ever stood with an expensive monthly train ticket in hand waiting for a train that hasn't been on time in two years.

In another incident of civic collapse, seven cars met their graves a bit early when a massive 30-foot sinkhole opened up in the northwestern Roman neighborhood of Balduine in February. Dozens of families had to be evacuated as a precaution in the sinkhole's aftermath.

Carnage. (...See what I did there?) Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

Carnage. (...See what I did there?) Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

The average Roman is complaining about public works and shoddy paving jobs, but the problems appear to go far beneath the surface. It may be true that politicians can't get out of their own way to begin a massive infrastructure overhaul, but paving is the last step in a process that will involve targeting vacuums beneath the city that are long-forgotten about, as illustrated by the recent discovery of fourth century catacombs deep below street level (Apologies: You'll need to parla Italiano to read that one).

But don't despair, people of the Seven Hills! Take a hint from the folks in Bath who decided to have a little fun with their miserable civic issue last spring:

Some people will claim this is the wrong plant for a pothole. Photo: Bath Chronicle/SWNS.com

Some people will claim this is the wrong plant for a pothole. Photo: Bath Chronicle/SWNS.com

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Andrea Girolamo once blew three tires out on a Volvo going through a pothole on Varick Street in New York City in 2003 and has familial ties to Rome. She drives a 2007 Toyota Yaris base in real life, and a Mercedes AMG E63 S wagon in her mind.

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Comments (5)

  • What is it about a giant hole opening up in a road that's so fascinating?

    Is it just the surprise element ? Dude where's my car!

      3 years ago
  • I think those are actually security measure. if you are crossing the road and a car is not slowing down, you can jump in to those holes and save your life.

      3 years ago
  • Hi congratulations - your post has been selected by DriveTribe Motorbikes Ambassador for promotion on the DriveTribe homepage.

      3 years ago
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