ROME — This city wasn’t built in a day — but it sure didn’t take as long as New York’s subways.
Mayor Eric Adams visited the “Eternal City” Friday and marveled at how quickly their transit terminals were constructed — while lamenting that New York City is a place where such things really take an eternity.
Hizzoner — who is in town for a meeting with Pope Francis — hailed a new metro line at Rome’s legendary Colosseum as “the real great idea” while speaking at a slaughterhouse-turned-art space in southwest Rome.
Mayor Eric Adams said building a subway system in Rome is easier than the Big Apple while visiting the Italian city. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
“Normally, you build a subway system in New York, you remove dirt but here… it’s almost like a real historical dig,” Adams said of the layers of history buried in Rome.
“And the time, how fast they are able to do it is another thing,” Adams said with a laugh. “When it comes down to making these major renovations, here, they are able to build without all the bureaucracy.”
Adams marveled at the rapid progress of Rome’s new subway line — which is slated to open next year — and compared it to New York City’s long-stalled $7.7 billion Second Avenue extension.
“How many years did it take to build Second Avenue,” Adams said, praising the Roman’s speedy construction.
“To expand their metro system that close to the Colosseum is just really a great feat because they are preserving the historical aspects of it while modernizing,” he added.“There’s a desire to modernize without destroying. They can live side by side.”
Adams, who visited the site of the Colosseum subway line Friday, also praised Romans’ use of tunnel-drilling technology.
“The technology I saw today…It’s far time that we are having that conversation,” he said of the technology, which seals walls as it cuts tunnels.
A video tweeted by Adams shows the mayor standing in the subway tunnel next to the historic amphitheater, wearing a hard hat and an orange construction vest as he praises the project.
“This is an amazing feat to see this built right by the Coliseum. It’s going to allow passengers and visitors and tourists to come take the metro right to the Coliseum,” he said in the footage, posted on X Friday morning.
“They use a tunnel boring machine. Not only does it bore the hole but as it bores the hole, it actually seals it,” he said.
Adams later met with Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, to discuss public transportation and housing policies.
Gualtieri later tweeted that “#Rome and #NewYork” want to work together because both are global cities who share issues like mass transit, housing policies and climate change.
Rome’s new Metro C station at the Colosseum is set to open in February 2025, Gualtieri announced in 2022.
Mayor Adams traveled to Italy Thursday to meet with Pope Franci in Vatican City in a trip funded by the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, which was founded by Francis via papal decree in 2021.
On Friday, Adams also attended a roundtable discussion with Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and was expected to tour the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel.
He’s expected to return to New York City on Monday, according to City Hall.
