Since the 1990s, there has been a great deal of archaeological excavation on both sides of the road, as significant Imperial Roman relics remain to be found underneath it.

The project was consistent with the philosophy of urban planning of the time, which provided for the opening in the city centres of wide connecting roads created by gutting the ancient building fabric.

A classic example is the transformation of Paris during the Second French Empire, by Napoleon III and the prefect Baron Haussmann, but there were similar interventions in London (1848–1865), Florence (1859–1865), Vienna (1857) and Brussels (1867–1871).

[citation needed] On 3 August 2013, the southern part of the road, between Largo Corrado Ricci and the Colosseum, was closed to private traffic, while buses and taxis are still allowed to use it.

The Via dei Fori Imperiali completely changed the landscape and character of a part of Rome: before its construction, the Colosseum was not visible from Piazza Venezia and the imperial fora were hidden by a popular quarter of the fifteenth century.