Venezia she has always lived modernity with such prudence, as if it were a danger to be tamed, above all trying not to be a slave to it. in the field ofurban construction has tended to make it compatible with the urban fabric created in its thousand-year history. Just walk around the city to see this mix of ancient and modern. Even the town planning interventions of the XNUMXth century were environmentally friendly both in burying many canals to obtain wider pedestrian spaces (rio will hold) and in gutting rows of houses in some districts to create pedestrian thoroughfares. A "modern" made cum juicio. There are no skyscrapers, but neither are houses with many floors, except those in the Ghetto, since the Jews necessarily had to live in that area.
In maritime transport modernity had to be embraced. From sailing ships to steamers, it was no longer possible to enter the Grand Canal for loading and unloading operations. For many centuries progress has led to incremental innovations well absorbed by the port of Venice. The Marittima was created, a port where commercial ships docked.
However, the last few decades have been devastating when they began to spread container ships e cruise ships. The increasingly large latter, relying on heavy economies of scale, allow a cruise offer that captures large segments of the population. At moderate prices, you can experience a week like a lord: swimming pool, casino, shows, lunches and dinners with many waiters at your service. Inevitable stops to visit, from a bird's eye view, fascinating cities and places rich in history.
And the catalog could not miss Venice and above all the route to go to the dock and to return to the sea. We passed in the basin of San Marco in front of the Doge's Palace, in San Marco. A dream! But this is where the problems arise for Venice and its lagoon: a 7-8 storey building enters, displacing millions of cubic meters of water, causing erosions on the banks and on the foundations of the houses, while the propellers move the sediments of the lagoon and the exhaust fumes pollute the air. It is almost an offense to the city, as if it were a giant entering a glassware shop, power, arrogance against fragility.
Environmentalists collide with those who work with cruises. Unfailing fight on the figures: five thousand employees and a lot of precariousness. The Monti government with the Clini-Passera decree, in 2012, prohibits the entry into the St Mark's area of ships exceeding 40 tons, suspending it, however, pending verification of other navigation possibilities. And the large ships, about 600 a year, continue to enter the basin to dock at the Marittima and the city protest groups do not stop opposing it, even with a referendum.
There is no shortage of projects that assume that large ships enter from the Alberoni port mouth and that, along the petroleum canal, they reach Porto Marghera or even the Marittima, reactivating, with appropriate excavations, an old canal that connects Marghera with the Marittima. There is a tendency to use the available production capacity, a clear constraint to change.
After much talk, many just protests and government positions finally a new fact. Large ships will no longer enter the Lagoon. The decree-law approved by the CDM provides for it, crowning a rethinking that had appeared inevitable after the accident of June 2, 2019, when the MCS Opera crashed into the San Basilio quay.
Now it will be a contest of ideas a rethink the ways to get cruise passengers to the city. Already ten years ago it was decided that they should not pass through the San Marco basin, now the ban is extended to the Lagoon. Attention not only the cruise terminal outside the lagoon but also the docks for container ships to overcome the limits of commercial traffic conditioned by the limited depths and by the functioning of the Mose. Let's hope it's the right time.
