From historical railways to cycleways. Re-functioning the heritage of linear monuments

This paper proposes a reflection on the relationship between historical infrastructures and cycleways. In Italy, with the Law 2/2018, rules have been provided for the development of bicycle mobility and the creation of a national cycleway network. The recovery of historical infrastructures is particularly promoted. Among these, disused railway lines reveal a specific vocation for cycling reuse. Unlike highway infrastructures, whose design is bound to parameters that imply a substantial autonomy from the landform, historical railways show how the project of territorial infrastructures can stage the architectural geography of anthropic and natural landscapes. Moreover, recovered in view of slow mobility usage, they appear as linear monuments capable of restoring the identity and stratified memories of the territory. With particular reference to the international cycleways longitudinally crossing the peninsula, along the Apennines, this paper focuses on the description of the architectural characteristics of several historical railway infrastructures, selected according to different geomorphological contexts. Aim of these slow mobility infrastructures is also to contribute to the revitalization of ‘inner areas’ of the peninsula. The knowledge of historical infrastructure is, in fact, assumed as a prerequisite for the design of cycleways that are able to relate to the territories and the multiplicity of their settlement forms.