Venice Erects Gates Against a Flood of Tourists

Even for tourist-packed Venice, this is taking crowd management to the extreme. During the May 1 weekend—a national holiday across Europe—Venice erected a pair of temporary gates at the ends of two major bridges in an effort to filter pedestrians trying to enter the historic part of the city.

The measure represents something of an emergency response to Easter weekend crowds that all but inundated the island city. The problem during such peak periods is a simple one of flow. It’s not just that Venice receives huge numbers of visitors, it’s that city’s archipelago layout and visitor habits tends to concentrate them in a few small areas; the narrow passages around St. Mark’s and the Rialto Bridge can easily become dangerously choked with humanity.