Venice to pull down cable cars after uphill battle to attract tourists

A CONTROVERSIAL cable car system on the Calatrava Bridge in Venice is to be dismantled, a mere six years after it opened at a cost of €2million (£1.7m).

Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice, was handed the closure order on Saturday from the Italian court of auditors, which had been considering the fate of a system branded a white elephant.

The court’s experts highlighted the high costs of the cable car, which quickly fell into neglect after being shunned by tourists, and had suffered several technical failures.

Visitors complained of its slowness and the fact that the cars were fully exposed to the sun, becoming unbearably hot during the summer.

Worrying glitches also put off tourists: in May 2015, two Americans were briefly trapped in a baking hot car.

The cable car system was opened in November 2013, five years after the construction of the bridge that links the Piazzale Roma to the Santa Lucia railway station. The bridge, officially the Ponte della Costituzione, or Constitution Bridge, was designed by Santiago Calatrava, the world-famous Spanish architect, who always opposed the cable car idea.

Many critics warned early on that the idea – partly conceived to transport disabled visitors – would not work. Venice faces an additional bill of around €40,000 to remove it.

The system was mocked from its opening day, when protesters dressed in ski-ware to suggest it was a method best reserved for mountain resorts.

Now barely used, the cable cars have been all but abandoned, covered with stickers and vandalised by visitors. People with disabilities will instead be able to use the ferry free of charge.

According to the experts’ findings, the operational issues were the responsibility of the project’s managers, with the city administration cleared of blame, a conclusion that paves the way for Venice to bring a civil suit against the technicians behind the system.