Medieval Towns, Traffic and Urban Planning, Half a Century since the First Pedestrian Zone in Siena, Italy

The Italian town is known as a collection of walls, gates, towers, palaces and cathedrals. The lanes and the squares were created in the Middle Ages, with an urban fabric suitable for horses and carriages, not for motor cars. At the beginning of the 1960s, it was no longer possible to delay a solution to the problem of traffic and the first ‘pedestrian isle’ was realized in the centre of Siena in 1965. Other towns in a few years followed this virtuous example. Acts against traffic avoided the building of urban motorways and the demolition of ancient buildings that would have given the ‘coup de grâce’ to several important historic centres.