Venice City officials launched a new waterbus line with one particular feature: No day-tripper tourists allowed. The new line — reserved for holders of the Carta Venezia pass — was introduced to lessen the impact of the estimated 20 million people who visit Venice each year on the city’s beleaguered residents, numbering about 60,000 in the historic centre at the end of last year.
“It’s an extra service for residents who are forced to bear the brunt of mass tourism,” said Mayor Massimo Cacciari.
“If people want to come to Venice they can come, but we have to allow residents to live better.”
Marcello Panettoni, director general of the Venice transport authority, said the new line was a response to citizens’ complaints that the hordes of tourists cramming onto waterbuses, with luggage in tow, had been leaving residents on dry land. “For people who live and work in Venice, better transportation had become essential.”
As tourism has boomed, various proposals to stem the tide of visitors to Venice, from limiting access to the historic centre to imposing a tourism tax, have been debated. But such measures are logistically difficult as well as unpopular with tourism industry workers. The Venice region’s tourist trade has a reported annual turnover of about $17 billion a year.
The launch of the new 3 line, which follows the Grand Canal along its length from Piazzale Roma, next to Venice’s car park, to Piazza San Marco, was scheduled to coincide with the Venici Carnival, which this year starts on Jan 25, a two-week pre-Lenten festival that attracts millions each year.
“Now that the Carnival is starting you can’t move around any more,” said Mirina Vio, 72, who complained that life in her native city had worsened considerably in recent years — higher prices, overcrowding, dirtier streets — as the tourism industry blossomed. Taking waterbuses, she added, had become a nightmare.
For repeat visitors to Venice, buying a Carta Venezia — which costs 40 euros for non-residents — may make more sense. Cardholders pay one euro per ticket. The card is good for three years.
Concerns about traffic jams on the Grand Canal, which already has two lines — one fast, one slow — that pass along it, not to mention innumerable gondolas as well as water taxis and private transportation would be dealt with during a first, experimental phase of the new line, said Enrico Mingardi, the city’s commissioner in charge of transportation.
Some residents have just become philosophical about the difficulties of living here. Flavio Poldrugo, originally from Trieste, said he thought the new line was “a good thing”. But after living here for two years he found that another mode of transportation was even better: walking.
“Often it takes less time,” he said.
The New York Times
