Venice installs cameras to catch out speeding on its canals
THE famed canals of Venice will soon be kitted out with speed cameras in a drive to enforce limits after a series of deadly accidents.
The cameras will be installed along the length of the city’s waterways, with fines handed out to boats which break the rules after local lawmakers backed a move to apply the same laws that govern the region’s roads to its canals.
Martina Semenzato, an MP, told Italian media: “The roads [of Venice] are the lagoon canals so boat traffic must be controlled more effectively.” Venice’s canals are often crammed with ferries, motorboats, launches, barges and gondolas, especially during the summer tourist season.
Vessels are permitted to travel at speeds of up to seven kilometres per hour in the main canals, and five kilometres per hour in smaller ones, but the speed limits are frequently defied and a series of deadly incidents on the waterways in recent years has raised concerns over the safety of tourists and locals alike.
The city’s waterways have been the site of a number of perilous episodes over the past decade or so, with three men killed in a high-speed crash in the city’s lagoon in 2019.
The same year, large cruise ships were banned from the Giudecca canal after five tourists were injured in a collision. Several years earlier, in 2013, a German tourist was crushed to death when the gondola in which he was travelling collided with a water bus on the Grand Canal.
In 2022, a Belgian tourist managed to avoid a serious accident after stealing a water taxi and taking it for a high-speed joy ride on the Grand Canal before being stopped by police and fined.
Meanwhile, regulatory gaps in the application of fines for boats found to have flouted local rules have resulted in a backlog of administrative disputes and an escalating number of unpaid fees.
Ms Semenzato said that the changes, which still require final parliamentary approval before they can take effect, would make the city safer and see new technology used to catch speeders.
“The amendment introduces a specific speed camera, named Barcavelox, to monitor and record the speed of boats and craft plying the canals of the lagoon city,” she said.
It is hoped the speed limits will also help protect Venice’s delicate lagoon ecosystem and architecture, which are at threat from the “wave motion” created by the vessels which churn through its waters.
Experts have warned that the waves erode the canal walls which lie below the waterline and damage local buildings that have stood in place for centuries.
The announcement came as Venice was preparing for the arrival of millions of tourists and an influx of boat traffic, as its annual Carnevale begins this week. Yesterday, the Grand Canal was filled with brightly coloured boats and costumed rowers in a traditional parade ahead of the event’s official opening.
‘The roads of Venice are the lagoon canals so boat traffic must be controlled effectively’