The new bridge in Venice is not yet built and is already causing controversies.

Rome - The controversial project for a bridge over the main canal in northern Italy's Venice took a concrete form last week. Cargo vessels transported a 55-meter long and 3.7-meter wide structure to the embankment at the main train station along the main Venetian waterway Canal Grande - the foundation of the future bridge. As the Italian agency ANSA reported, this will be the first modern bridge to rise in Venice in 70 years. However, the construction has many opponents whose voices are not fading, rather the opposite.
A large arch settled on steel supports, which have grown on the opposite shores of the canal, is intended to provide a connection in the future between the train station and Piazzale Roma, where the bus terminal is located. The structure, dominated by glass stairs, will span 94 meters.
The work, signed by the renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, will be the fourth bridge over the Canal Grande and is expected to be operational by the end of the year. However, this will depend on whether its builders encounter further obstacles.
The project has been accompanied from the beginning by a number of problems and delays. For instance, due to the persistent opposition from its critics, sharply rising costs, and even concerns that the structure is too heavy for the foundations built in the saturated terrain to support it in the long term. Disagreement has also been expressed by organizations caring for the disabled, as the designers forgot to consider access for the handicapped.
Last Wednesday, hundreds of people gathered at the future bridge site at the request of two right-wing opposition parties, the Northern League (LN) and the National Alliance (AN). However, the reason people came is interpreted differently by each group. According to the organizers, it was a protest against the bridge, while the police viewed it more as curiosity to see how the structure would be erected across the canal.
The AN primarily disagrees with the increasing costs of the construction - the original budget was four million euros (about 120 million crowns), but it is now over ten million (almost 300 million crowns). According to the party's representatives, such an amount would be much more beneficial if it were spent on restoring the local dilapidated housing stock and on helping poor families to prevent them from fleeing the city for better opportunities on the mainland.
Calatrava, who designed the monumental Olympic stadium for Athens, dismissed critics pointing to the unacceptable weight of the bridge as "professionally embarrassing" claims. According to him, the weight of the bridge will rest on foundations anchored far from the waterlogged banks of the canal in solid ground. Regarding construction delays and multiplied costs, he claims to have nothing to do with it, says the architect.
The 56-year-old Calatrava has received numerous awards for his projects, such as the Oceanographic Museum in his native Valencia or the Milwaukee Art Museum in the United States. These accolades have opened doors to other interesting contracts, including the design of a new urban transit center beneath the future World Trade Center complex in New York. He also won a preliminary international competition for the project of the world's tallest building, which is to be built in Chicago.

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> More information about the ongoing bridge construction