Accessibilità urbana a Venezia = Urban Accessibility in Venice

For elderly people, the possibility to enjoy open spaces is essential. It avoids isolation, assures reality orientation and allows to continue to play an active role in the community for that people that chose not to live in nursing homes. Make cities more age-friendly, improving accessibility of open spaces, is therefore a challenge of next decades, even for Venice that is not an easy place to live in for older people, despite they represent a high percentage of the city population considering that about 25% of residents are over 65 years old. The complex urban pattern, characterized by calli and pavemented fondamenta next to the canals without any railing, represents a problem for pedestrians with limited mobility. But are the bridges the real obstacles for people with physical disabilities and are a risk of falls or slips for elderly people. The city has two complementary transport networks, a water and a pedestrian system, with distinct articulations that influence the shape of the open spaces. These networks have been made more accessible: the navigation public service, that connects most parts of the city, has been equipped with solutions to guarantee accessibility at landing stages; on the other hand, a series of work have been done on some bridges to guarantee their accessibility and improve usability of many of them. During the last twenty years therefore, to make the city more accessible to both disabled and elderly residents, the Venetian Municipality has implemented many measures in the city above all on the bridges, adding handrails not present on historical ones and mounting temporary or permanent ramps on them, always guaranteeing a correct balance between the preservation of cultural heritage and the effectiveness of measures. This paper describes the works done so far to address accessibility, focusing in particular on those solutions that improved city liveability, in order to have a resident-friendly and not only tourists dedicated city.