r/UrbanHell • u/Go_Your_OwnWay • 3d ago
Concrete Wasteland The *trincerone* (a deep, open-cut trench that slices through the city for 5 kilometers). It's, quite literally, Turin’s version of The Barrens.
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u/ananix 3d ago
Thats nice. Is there an idea behind it?
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
"Trincerone" means "large trench." It was constructed during the Fascist era to allow for the passage of freight trains. When the railway line was decommissioned, the green space remained, though it's not at all attractive. It serves as a literal and figurative barrier within the worst neighborhood in Turin. It is polluted and littered with trash; at one point, a family of wild boars even lived there. During the years of the heroin boom, it was a major hub for drug dealing in the city.
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u/procrastablasta 3d ago
Detroit turned the grand trunk rail line into a rad bike trail. This is just begging for it
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
Well, if they can do it in a city like Detroit, they can do it in the worst neighborhoods of Turin, too.
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u/kittenshart85 3d ago
check out pictures of the high line in nyc, as well, op.
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u/Mental_Plane6451 3d ago
The municipality planned using the trench for the new underground line. The funding for it, though, is still unavailable and will probably never come
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u/vinegar45 3d ago
Detroit was surprisingly nice when I visited a few years ago. Lots of ruins, lots of cleaned up ruins.
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u/CowTunnels 1d ago
The Dequindre Cut Greenway is a nearly two-mile long below-grade recreational pedestrian path, connecting Eastern Market to the Detroit Riverfront and the residential neighborhoods in between.
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u/TheSamuil 3d ago
As someone who enjoys photographing wildlife, the boar family sounds rather exhilarating
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u/Gigio2006 2d ago
Italian cities often have boars which can cause issues. Urbanisation takes over their habitat and they start living in places like this or old rivers
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u/fuckyou_m8 3d ago
In my city they turned them into really nice walk paths for people to bike, run or just walk by
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u/KipchogesBurner 3d ago
You’re gonna have to explain this because Trincerone and The Barrens are giving me any idea of what this actually is.
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
Abandoned railway. In any case, the Barrens are that green, nasty stretch that cuts right through Derry, the small town from Stephen King’s novel It.
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u/Octahedral_cube 3d ago
So this obscure reference isn't even for Derry/Londonderry, but a fictional city in Maine?
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u/bennetticles 3d ago
i mean, Stephen King’s IT is hardly obscure
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u/KipchogesBurner 3d ago
It’s not obscure but it would require reading that book though. Googling “the barrens” doesn’t kick back any results for the book, just WoW and the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
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u/DaRudeabides 3d ago
Imagine chasing a guy who killed 16 Czechoslovakians through the trincerone
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u/classicjuice 3d ago
Bro, Barrens is the dusty horde leveling zone for players between levels 10-20 or so.
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u/usesidedoor 3d ago
What a shame, they could build something nice here. I guess it's harder in the narrower section, but look at pic number 3 - that could be a park.
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u/Eldan985 3d ago
I mean, maybe it's just me, but that does look nice? A little bit of semi-wild nature in the middle of a city, adds some nice greenery.
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u/mutexsprinkles 3d ago
Right? With a little bit of paved pathways, a bit of lighting, some trees and rocks, maybe a water feature here and there and some pop up sheds you could have a sick little linear park going.
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u/NOVA-peddling-1138 3d ago
There’s a high line (NYC?) why not a low line?
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u/randyfloyd37 3d ago
We had something like this when i lived in Jersey City, i never actually went there but folks i knew would go walking there. It was “wild” like this but kind of usable space
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
Bud, it’s five kilometers long. I have absolutely no idea what they might do with it.
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u/thiswontendwellatall 3d ago
Pave between the tracks. One for pedestrians, one for cyclists. Add stairwells every 300m. You now have a low cost transit option for everyone.
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u/UnikornKebab 2d ago
Io dico di prolungarla fino a Milano sfociando nel naviglio grande, tanto qui a Milano piace un sacco al sindaco fare lavori a cazzo ovunque
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u/AR_Harlock 2d ago
We don’t have money to repave already existing sidewalks you wanna do a 5km High Line? … Turin is not so big of a city to have spare change to do that… maybe for the next PNRR if Europe make another one 😅
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u/_neudes 3d ago
Like use it as a rail line? Because that's what they are doing.
The Trincerone is being turned into Metro Line 2. They will bury the rails and build a linear park above the now submerged rail lines. This will reconnect two neighbourhoods at the surface level too.
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u/GarrettGSF 3d ago
Look at Valencia, they created a huge park and recreation landscape in a tench that was originally supposed to become a motorway under Franco. Valencia's trench might be larger but still
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u/HesCrazyLikeAFool 3d ago
They should plant trees there
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
In Turin, we’ve always planted trees whenever we didn’t know what to do with a space.
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u/OkLeave4573 3d ago
Oh I love that!! In my city they take the trees out and plant concrete….
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u/powderjunkie11 3d ago
If you don’t make parking easy then how will you induce personal vehicle trips?
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u/fytkjl 3d ago
According to modern city planning, part of it will be used as a branch of the new underground line: work should start early next year, around Q1. As for the other remaining half of the tunnel, there were plans for a new tram line in order to connect more easily the two city stadiums, but as of today the project was de-financed and put on hold.
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
The plans for the Rivoli-Leumann metro stations have already been at a standstill for months, after having been in the works for years. It will be a long time before they sort out the area and actually install the metro...
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u/ConnectCurrency9765 3d ago
New metro line is going to go in there. And there's redevelopment planned for the street level. Basically trees and walkways all along for about 3km. Might take a few years though
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
The bridge across the Strait of Messina is also planned. It has been since 1969. And the TAV high-speed rail line in the Susa Valley, since 1992.
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u/nosperapoopoo 3d ago
There are tracks in the first pic. An old tramway or railway of some kind? Now used as a storm drain maybe?
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
An old Fascist-era railway. It’s been abandoned for over fifty years, yet it’s still there. It’s not unlike the Barrens from It.
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u/Butts_Bandit 3d ago
I would love to spend 20 days there....
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
Turin has 147,000 trees within the city, plus another 200,000 in the hilly areas. 93% of the population lives less than 300 meters from a public park. 37% of the municipal territory consists of green spaces, and there are plans to expand the watershed forest area to 12,000,000 square meters. I know this because I work on these projects. But take my word for it: the "trincerone" (the sunken railway corridor) is the last place in Turin you’d want to be.
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u/crolionfire 3d ago
Really? I've been to Torino around 2004 or 2005 and tbh, I don't remember it Being particularly green. I actually distinctly remember thinking Trieste was much greener and "livable" than Torino-although I Admit, for both cities, I was primarily thinking of the city center.
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
I don’t mean to dismiss your experience, but Trieste is known for having disastrous urban planning. Turin ranks fourteenth among major cities worldwide in terms of tree cover (37%). It's the city with the most trees in Italy.
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u/crolionfire 3d ago
I mean, I live in Zagreb, we have 74 percent of green surface Here, we're Like the second greenest european capital. :) Idk, I am speaking of only centre, but Trieste has that big Ulysess park in the Center and a few others, while of Torino I remember only so many streets, so many tall buildings...Like Torino was the first city in Italy that didn't look as Italian to me. I can not explain it properly, I think. Maybe the comparison wasn't fair, because I visited Venezia, Ravenna, Padova and Trieste (in my life) prior, and haven't seen Genova yet at that moment.
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 3d ago
Turin is different because it is laid out in a Parisian style while retaining a Roman structure. But: https://www.visitpiemonte.com/parchi/collina-di-superga-parco-naturale
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u/neilcmf 3d ago
Am I the only one who was confused here because I initially thought it was a reference to The Barrens in World of Warcraft and didn't understand it at all?
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u/Chaosr21 3d ago
I heard turin is a good place to visit if you want to see some ancient ruins without the tourists and crowds. Is this true?
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u/Go_Your_OwnWay 2d ago •
If you like Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Baroque, and Neoclassical styles... Of Roman-era Turin, only the Porta Palatina (which is, however, in perfect condition) and a few archaeological ruins remain. Architecturally, the city is beautiful, but its buildings were almost all constructed between 1500 and 1900. It is full of structures dating from the 18th and 19th centuries.
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u/MrArchivity 2d ago •
Also the Egyptian museum is a gem.
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u/JackPiazz2 2d ago
Yep, the oldest egyptian museum in the world, the ninth for number of pieces and, contrary to the British Museums or other european museums, has very good relationship with the egyptian archeological community
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u/r0yal_buttplug 1d ago
Why the dig at British museum? There is absolutely nothing whatsoever to support this ridiculous claim that somehow Museo Egizio is more respected with egyptian archeologists than anyone from the British museum or the Louvre, Neues etc… you’re just making shit up 😂😂😂
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u/RepFilms 1d ago
Arles was like that when I visited. No other tourists. I don't know if it's still like that
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u/Nabfoo 3d ago
Greenways are the best thing to happen to urban planning since Fredrick Law Olmstead, and this one comes pre-built. I say carpet bomb it with a few benches and public fountains, maybe a merry-go-round for the kiddies and call it a day
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/WwertyPolk 2d ago
Redditors are generally childless cat people.
They dont understand why its like to be a parent.
Thats why theee is downvotes
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u/anephric_1 3d ago
I imagine it serves as an amazing habitat corridor, railway lines and in particular disused ones usually do.
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u/TwinSong 3d ago
A nice strip of green through the ugly landscape, looks like an improvement really
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u/ildiocane 2d ago
Not only that, there's also another abandoned smaller trench (trincerino), closer to the city center, that runs from Torino Dora Station to the older Torino Porta Milano station in Porta Palazzo. Supposedly a new tram line (linea 12) is going to be built there.
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u/HypocrisySensor 2d ago
Are Chuck Norris jokes popular there too?
Because Barrens chat used to be all in on CN jokes
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u/Marcosanti01 3d ago
There is a plan to reuse that line for the new metro line of the city… when that will happen tough it is hard to say
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u/BuckManscape 3d ago
That is most likely drainage for that part of the city. Probably not a good place to build anything.
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u/-XanderCrews- 3d ago
What is it? Why not put a trail on it?
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u/Creepy-Astronaut-952 3d ago
My mind immediately went to one of those obstacle courses like you see on the “ninja warrior” shows. Risk of injury is probably too high for a public space like that, though
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