A Subway System for Venice?

Post date: Nov 17, 2017 11:34:35 AM

When we met with our advisors this past week, we discussed, among other things, a proposal for a subway system that would connect Venice to Marco Polo Airport. Our advisors seemed enthusiastic about the proposed subway system, but noted that it had its flaws and suggested that we look into possible alternative routes that a subway system could follow. With their advice in mind, we came up with several possible subway routes that could be constructed in Venice:

• • A line directly from Murano to the Ferrovia and Piazzale Roma.

  • A line connecting Lido to St. Mark’s Square, the island of Giudecca, and the Piazzale Roma.

  • A direct connection between Marco Polo Airport and the Piazzale Roma.

  • A line between the Piazzale Roma and the Venezia Porto Marghera train station in Mestre.

  • A line connecting the current Fondamente Nove water bus station to the Piazzale Roma.

We have already begun to estimate the costs of these subway lines and the times required to travel between their endpoints: for example, the line from Lido to the Piazzale Roma would cost roughly 713 million euros to construct and would take slightly over 13 minutes to travel from end to end. In order to gauge the benefits of these subway lines, we plan to compare their associated travel times with the current travel times between these points and estimate the ridership of each line. The number of people expected to use each line will allow us to determine the lines’ operating costs, the final step in our cost-benefit analysis.

Works Cited:

Sylvers, E. (2005, Feb. 23). Venice Underground. Retrieved September 17, 2017, from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/business/venice-underground.html.