As Milan crawls slowly back to life after the summer recess, its Ecopass traffic congestion charge comes back on-line.
A map of Milan’s Ecopass zone is shown in the following post.
After a three week summer pause, which I mentioned in my Milan’s Ecopass Goes on Vacation post, the Italian city’s Ecopass system fired up again today, Monday 25th August. This means that if you want to bring certain categories of car into the centre of the city, from today, you will have to pay, again.
For more information on this system, see my Ecopass Milan post from January of this year.
As a side note, many Milanese have been complaining that the Ecopass zone is poorly indicated, and I can sympathise with them. In my area for example, Via Paolo Sarpi/Corso Sempione, which is not within the Ecopass zone, there are confusing signs which give the impression that you are on the point of entering the area within which an Ecopass payment must be made.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
These signs are misleading and should really read, ‘You are about to enter the Ecopass Zone’ or suchlike. Here is a link to the English version of the Ecopass brochure, in .pdf format. Sorry, the link now goes nowhere, and I can’t find the English version of the Ecopass brochure any longer – 21 September, 2009.
Here is a map of Milan’s Ecopass zone in .pdf format – map link added on 21 September, 2009. Please let me know if any links are broken.
For reference, here is a map from 21 September, 2009, which shows Milan’s Ecopass zone:
Hopefully the Milan authorities won’t mind my borrowing this image from their guide.
If I learn of any changes to the Ecopass, I’ll let you know, and please get in touch if you want to ask a question or highlight a problem, and I’ll attempt to be useful.
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Source: Press Release, in Italian, from Milan Council: Ecopass sospeso dal 2 al 24 agosto – Translation: Ecopass suspended from the 2 to 24 August 2008
