Italian governmental committee has decided that gondolas and water taxis will never again have to compete with big cruise ships for space in front of Venice’s iconic St Mark Square.
The venetians and environmentalists have long voiced the concerns about floating pleasure palaces sailing close to the fragile city, dwarfing its Gothic and Byzantine churches.
Under the new rules, which follow a provisional limit imposed three years ago, the largest ships weighing 100,000 tonnes or more will take a less glamorous route to the industrial port of Marghera, far from the Grand Canal.
The mayor of Venice Luigi Brugnaro hailed the plan as answering the requirements of residents, the lucrative tourism business, and conservation groups who have raised the alarm about damage to the shallow lagoon and canals. They want it to be clear to UNESCO and the whole world that they have a solution.
This takes into account all the jobs created by the cruise industry, which we absolutely couldn’t afford to lose, and we can start to work seriously on planning cruises. The work needs to be done on the new route, which will open within four years, infrastructure and transport minister Graziano Delrio said.
The ships weighing more than 96,000 tonnes were banned from the Giudecca canal in 2013, while the number of smaller ships using the waterway was limited to five a day, but that legislation was overturned at the end of 2015.
