Bari: the new green parking area near the Santa Chiara market in Japigia is open to the public.

The new green parking area built in the car park in front of the Santa Chiara market, between via Pitagora and via Peucetia, in Japigia.

During the intervention, financed with PON Metro funds for about 400 thousand euros, 115 parking spaces were created for cars (including two spaces for disabled people) and 10 for motorbikes, arches were installed for parking bicycles, 1.572 m3.500 were de-waterproofed out of a total of approximately 22 mXNUMX and XNUMX trees were planted - including hackberry trees , camphor and carob trees – and numerous bushes – teucrium, laurel, myrtle, lantana, westringia fructicosa, abelial, lavender and rosemary, agapanthus and vitex agnus – served by an irrigation system.

Public lighting and video surveillance systems have also been set up and will be completed with another contract currently being awarded.

Finally, the sidewalk at the corner with Via Pitagora has been redesigned with the inclusion of a bulbout and ramps for citizens with motor disabilities.

“We are returning the parking area adjacent to the Santa Chiara market to the citizens – explained Nicola Mele -, renewed thanks to an important de-waterproofing intervention which led to halving the surface covered by asphalt, with the installation of a draining pavement, and greening, with the planting of trees, hedges and flowerbeds, to guarantee not only an aesthetic but also air quality for the benefit of residents and customers of the neighborhood market.

The administration's commitment to combating the heat island effect has translated in recent years into a massive de-waterproofing intervention carried out in the areas affected by redevelopment interventions throughout the city, which we estimate in total at over 20.000 m2.260 considering the removal of asphalt carried out for XNUMX mXNUMX in the car park in via Vaccarella, 370 mXNUMX in the Rita Levi Montalcini garden, 1.000 m276 in the garden in via delle Murge, 1.980 m10.150 in the small square via Genova/via Pantanelli in Carbonara, 2 m3.220 in the area in front of the parish of San Nicola a Catino, 124 mXNUMX of the Largo XNUMX Giugno park&ride and XNUMX mXNUMX which will soon they will be removed as part of the works for the GXNUMX of the Don Bosco court at San Paolo".

“With this new green car park, we are definitively overcoming the temporary arrangement that has characterized the square adjacent to the Santa Chiara market for decades– commented Lorenzo Leonetti –. What was previously an area of ​​gravel and asphalt strips which, in case of rain, became unusable is now a space equipped for the parking of over 100 cars with bike stalls, new trees and shrubs and the provision of public lighting and video surveillance: a work that restores functionality and beauty to a public space used by residents of the area as well as by the many patrons of the Santa Chiara market. In this way we were able to honor another promise made to the neighborhood at the beginning of this mandate."

The new green parking area in via Peucetia is part of the experimental action plan for urban greenery (greening and forestation) financed by the PON Metro and aimed at containing climate change and the heat island effect in the city.