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Turin is looking out towards the world. Invited to the Urban 20 Mayors Summit in New York, the city has taken its place alongside some of the world’s leading metropolitan centres to discuss migration, inclusion, employment, housing and the future of urban communities. It is an important recognition and one of which any city may legitimately be proud.
Yet while delegates in New York were discussing the ability of local authorities to manage complex urban challenges, back in Turin a football match was enough to subject the city to a far less solemn and much more practical test: allowing people to travel across it.
In a message published by La Stampa, one reader said that it took him an hour and a half to travel from Piazza Bernini to Piazza Crimea. Almost as long, he observed with bitter humour, as the journey from Turin to the seaside.
According to his account, the surrounding roads had become a tangle of stationary vehicles: parents unable to reach their children, elderly people travelling to medical appointments and emergency vehicles attempting to force a path through the traffic with sirens that were loud but apparently ineffective.
Another account, published by the same news outlet and signed with the initials M.R., reported that a procession of visiting supporters had moved along Corso Cairoli, disrupting traffic near the Corso Vittorio bridge during rush hour.
The reader described some of the supporters as agitated and intoxicated. This is, of course, a personal impression that we are unable to verify, but it clearly conveys the distress experienced by those caught in the traffic paralysis.
Football is not, naturally, the universal culprit. Cities also thrive on major events, visitors, entertainment and sporting occasions. They bring people, commercial activity and visibility. But a scheduled event is not an earthquake: its date, time and location are known in advance, as is usually the approximate number of people expected to attend.
The question, therefore, is not whether supporters should be prevented from reaching the stadium or confined behind barriers. It is whether the authorised route, the chosen timetable, the traffic diversions and the information provided to residents were adequate.
Above all, it is necessary to ask whether emergency access was properly protected. Unlike a football match, an ambulance cannot wait for the final whistle.
Turin can take part in global summits about the cities of the future while also listening to those who describe the difficulties of the city as it exists today. The two are not contradictory. On the contrary, they should complement each other: ambitious strategies gain credibility when they work in front of a blocked bridge, an emergency vehicle trapped in traffic or a parent unable to reach a child.
Urban mobility is not a glamorous subject. It produces neither ceremonial photographs nor international handshakes. It is made up of traffic lights, routes, advance warnings, police officers, ambulances and minutes taken from people’s lives. For precisely that reason, it remains one of the most honest measures of a city’s efficiency.
A few good ideas may return from the New York summit. From the windows of stationary cars, however, a reminder has already arrived: a truly international city is not merely one that earns a place at the world’s leading tables. It is also one that can still allow an ambulance through when the ball begins to roll.
🖋️ © By The Pavement Correspondent | 2026 — All Rights Reserved
© 2026 SalaStampa.eu, world press service – All Rights Reserved – Guzzo Photos & Graphic Publications – Registro Editori e Stampatori n. 1441 Turin, Italy
Source: LaStampa.it, 20 September 2026. Readers’ accounts quoted and summarised for the purposes of reporting and commentary