Posts about Transportation
Advice and information to hep you find your way around on holiday.
Given that we operate in 19 cities worldwide and I spend a good chunk of the year traveling between them, you’d think that I’d be pretty expert in all the ins and outs of visa requirements and travel planning. And yet, on a recent trip to Beijing and Shanghai from the U.S. I was caught out at the last minute without a visa for China. Read more »
Posted by Paul Bennett | This post has no comments
May 11th, 2012 under Beijing, Budget Conscious Travel, City Life, Context Travel, Shanghai, Transportation, Travel News.
The new train station in Rome
We’ve asked architect and Rome docent Liz Brewster to tell us more about the new, sleek looking station of Tiburtina that recently reopened to travelers in the East of the Italian Capital. After much controversy, and a large fire that delayed the opening, the new Stazione Tiburtina is finally here.
A sleek new glass-skinned steel bridge has recently emerged above the tangle of raised concrete viaducts that make up Rome’s busy east tangential highway. The Tiburtina station now arches over the 20+ train tracks that line up below, visually announcing its presence from afar. Gone is the low, placid
block of the old Tiburtina train station which sat politely alongside the tracks for decades. As the Italian rail system upgrades to high velocity trains, a series of major city train stations throughout Italy are undergoing major renovation.
The Tiburtina station has grown to become one of Rome’s principle public transportation interchange points, housing a B line metro stop beneath it and a major national and international bus terminal adjacent to it. If the controversial and expensive high velocity rail lines that are planned to connect the European countries are completed, the Tiburtina station could be the entry gate into Rome for passengers coming from outside of Italy like France and Spain.
I couldn’t wait to see the metamorphosis take place. Along with all the other residents of north and east Rome, it’s been several years of agonizing detour road traffic around the construction site and slaloming barriers in the station itself when I took the train. I’d crane my neck to watch the progress every time I dared to take the Tangenziale, which has become an enormous hemostat, squeezing cars down to a traffic standstill for kilometers.
Tiburtina station interior
I decided it was most appropriate to arrive by train for my first visit. Getting off the train, I rode up one of the new escalators that starts right on the arrival platform and penetrates directly into the underbelly of the the bridge station that looms above and across the tracks. It felt a little like being beamed up into a large, hovering spacecraft.
Once inside, the 10,000 square meter concourse was truly spectacular. Floor to ceiling glass walls allow visitors to see the horizon of the city line and watch the flow of the train activity below. By night the concourse is illuminated by rows of sparkling ceiling lights, creating a fishbowl display of people
moving through the bridge’s innards. In the several-story tall space, 8 suspended halls float about mid- height on either side of the concourse, piercing through the glass walls and forming protrusions or “interferences” on the building exterior.. Each suspended hall’s perimeters are soft and curved, defined by a solid plane bent over itself like a ribbon to form the ceiling, wall and floor. Matte green colored, it vaguely looks like a colossal stick of peppermint chewing gum has been folded over to form a space in its concavity. Floor to ceiling glass walls fill in the open end walls. The overall effect of walking through this space amplified the sense of fluid movement and transition.
The new station, commissioned by the Italian National Rail and designed by architect Paolo Desideri and partners of the roman studio ABDR, is being completed more or less on schedule; the station was inaugurated precociously in November 2011. The commercial spaces in the concourse were still empty when I visited and both interior and exterior finish work on the building was still being completed. The station’s new bridgehead entrances on either side of the tracks are dramatic multistory spaces, but the surrounding external public spaces are far from completion. On the east side, the concrete viaducts of the Tangential road, (which are planned to be removed) come within meters of the 4 story glass facade.
On the west side, a service road skirts a barren hillside as the parking lot and park areas have not yet been activated. Worried residents of the surrounding neighborhoods have organized regular protests to bring attention to lack of momentum the city of Rome seems to be taking to move ahead with the part of the plans that they are to complete. Locals are afraid the city of Rome will cut the budget and not follow through with the ambitious urban renewal for the external public spaces around the station, which include interconnected green parks, public piazzas, bike and pedestrian paths and parking as well as the removal of entire sections of the tangenziale viaducts and an eventual deviation of automobile transit. The Tiburtina station’s bridge form makes the building a natural connector between the two neighborhoods that flank the railroad, bringing new centrality to areas that have been separated since the railroad lines were originally put in.
If the entire Tiburtina project is completed as it was originally planned, the whole area, station and
surrounds, will be worthy of it’s role as an international gateway into Rome. Stay tuned!
Posted by Liz Brewster | This post has one comment
May 7th, 2012 under City Life, Docent Essays, Rome, Special Events, Transportation.
Context Travel is sensitive to the obstacles facing travelers with mobility limitations. Most of the cities we visit are very old, harking back centuries or even millennia, meaning one must grapple with layouts that can date back to Roman or Medieval times and are often dotted with potholes, cobblestones and various other pitfalls. Museums, churches, monuments and archaeological sites vary greatly in their degree of access, ranging from fully accessible to completely inaccessible. People who use wheelchairs, scooters, walkers, canes and crutches are likely to face a myriad of difficulties – ranging from uneven sidewalk surfaces, steep terrain and lack of curb ramps, to parked cars and motorcycles blocking the way, to tiny or malfunctioning museum elevators and inaccessible restrooms. Read more »
Posted by Jessica | This post has no comments
March 3rd, 2012 under City Life, Florence, Mobility Program, Naples, Rome, Transportation, Venice.
As an architect in Rome I work on remaking places so that they better serve peopleʼs needs–and stir their souls–while contributing as much as possible to the long-term, planetary ecological balance. Some Studio Rome projects are extremely local, such as our proposal to transform underused structures along the Tiber into a center for urban re-use. Others involve prototypes that might be inserted into various contexts: bike-racks, urban gardens, etc. or broader planning projects that traverse the city such as rail lines or bike paths. Read more »
Posted by Tom Rankin | This post has no comments
January 6th, 2012 under City Life, Docent Essays, Rome, Transportation.
The holidays are rapidly approaching, and amidst the shopping crunch we all need to take little time to revel in the spirit of the season. Below are some of our favorite ways to get into the holiday mood in Philadelphia without spending a dime.
Read more »
Posted by Carolyn | This post has no comments
December 12th, 2011 under Budget Conscious Travel, Food and Wine, Music, Theater, and Dance, Philadelphia, Shopping, Transportation, Uncategorized.
Autumn is a fabulous time of year to visit Venice. As sweaty summer throngs dissipate along with the August heat, the old lady of the sea reveals her treasures more serenely to those who visit in the autumn. Fall brings mellower days, sometimes sunny and golden, sometimes misty and ethereal, and, yes, occasional rain. But Venice may have another surprise in store for the autumn visitor: it is the season of acqua alta (high water). Read more »
Posted by Susan Steer | This post has 3 comments
September 26th, 2011 under City Life, Context Travel, Docent Essays, Family Travel, Transportation, Travel News, Venice.
On a recent visit to the newly open Savoy Hotel, I picked up a copy of a handy map of London. Far from being the traditional tool to navigate the city, this handy document is designed to help visitors be more environmentally conscious when visiting London. Read more »
Posted by Petulia | This post has no comments
May 3rd, 2011 under Accommodation, Budget Conscious Travel, City Life, Context Travel, Family Travel, London, Transportation, Travel News.
Berlin is bracing and beautiful in winter!
My last visit here was in the summer of 1993, and at that time the city, and particularly the central zones surrounding the old Berlin Wall, were a sea of construction cranes, stitching back together the recently reunited East and West.
This trip I borrowed a bicycle (and some much-needed handlebar mitts to mitigate sub-freezing temperatures) and had a great time crisscrossing the gleaming unified city, with its spectacular bike-friendly streets and bridges, lined with hysterically optimistic new architecture, melancholy relics of old times, and a very friendly neighborhood character that lies somewhere in between.
Read more »
Posted by Andrew Kranis | This post has no comments
March 26th, 2011 under Architecture, Berlin, City Life, Culture, Docent Essays, History, Museums and Monuments, Transportation.
As we are still in the deep of winter, with rainy days and freezing temperatures, it’s difficult to think of day trips and walking around in the English countryside. However, this is the best time to plan ahead and make a list of places we can visit for a weekend or a day trip using London as a starting point. Read more »
Posted by Petulia | This post has 5 comments
January 25th, 2011 under Architecture, Art, Context Travel, Family Travel, Food and Wine, London, Transportation.
The Context staff in Rome spends alot of time passing through the city’s main train station, Termini. Whether we are going to Venice, Florence or Naples for work and elsewhere for leisure, Termini is one of the hearts of the city – with tourists, travelers, and commuters passing through by the hundreds on a daily basis.
The main and basement levels of the station house dozens of shops, snack bars, and self-service restaurants. Many are the same you can find in stations and high streets all around the world (Sephora, Benetton, Nike, etc.) but there are some gems to seek out if you find yourself waiting for the Leonardo Express out to Fiumicino airport or if you just missed that Eurostar to Florence. Here are some of our favorites: Read more »
Posted by Megan | This post has no comments
October 26th, 2010 under City Life, Context Travel, Rome, Shopping, Transportation, Uncategorized.
