Access and mobility for the conservation and enhancement of a historic town: the case of Vietri sul mare on the Amalfi coast

Vietri sul Mare is a small town near the city of Salerno, located on the eastern boundary of UNESCO Amalfi Coast’s site. Its geographic area, closely related to an uncommon beautiful coastline, represents an interesting case-study for the presence of a complex heritage system including landscape, urban fabric and historic-artistic testimonies, together with the remarkable survival of the ceramics industry. In spite of that, the accessibility system of Vietri is poor, for both its steep orography and the failure of public transport strategies: the use of private car can be really daunting determining totally unsustainable conditions as for the traffic and the environment too. As the result of an inter-University and interdisciplinary research work – developed by a team of city planners, conservation researchers and experts on transportation – the paper focuses on a strategic framework concerning the enhancement of the entire historic urban system, the aims of which are: the sustainable accessibility, the requalification of the public spaces and the protection of cultural heritage and landscape. The work is firstly based on a thorough investigation about the area and the urban system, that is supported by an in-depth historical research. Then the work focuses the mobility system, through a preliminary analysis of the mobility demand and the critical issues of the transport system. Starting from the context analysis, a strategic operating framework is defined, aimed to the improvement of internal and external accessibility. New parking areas are particularly planned, as well as systems of sustainable mobility – eco-bus and bike-sharing – and, above all, new lift systems connecting the coast to the historic center, in which some accessible pedestrian paths are organized. Finally the result represents the synthesis of an urban, landscape and mobility project, which points out the multisector and multiscale character of the contemporary project.