A bridge, a city and a business lesson about inclusion

Take a look at the photo below. What do you notice?

Shallow steps? Slick glass? A lack of wheelchair accessibility?

If you answered any of the above, you’re right, of course, but here’s what you might not see: a business failure. 

Over the past 15 years, Ponte della Costituzione, or Constitution Bridge, has cost the city of Venice millions of euros—and cities are businesses.

Every time a city council meets, they’re essentially running a board meeting for a multi-million dollar enterprise. Cities make strategic investments to attract the customers they need most—tourists who inject money into local economies, companies establishing headquarters and  residents paying taxes that fuel growth. They manage budgets, analyse market data and develop strategies to outcompete neighbouring cities.

The major difference between a city and a traditional business is that a city’s shareholders are its residents, and its success is measured not just in dollars, but in the quality of life it provides.

From this perspective, Constitution Bridge has been a disaster for Venice’s shareholders: it has wasted their tax money and failed to improve their quality of life, all because the city didn’t consider accessibility from the start. 

The celebration that never was

Even before its opening in September 2008, Constitution Bridge was controversial among Venetians. Because of its proximity to Ponte degli Scalzi, many questioned its necessity, arguing that the city would be better served by a bridge in an area with wider gaps between existing crossings.

Nonetheless, before the construction of Constitution Bridge, only three bridges crossed the Grand Canal. World-famous architect Santiago Calatrava was designing the fourth bridge—and the first built in this millennium. Its opening should have been an international event. However, in the nine years since the Venice Municipality commissioned the bridge, opposition to its construction had grown so significantly that the Mayor cancelled the inaugural ceremony. 

Protesters had two main complaints: its cost and its lack of wheelchair accessibility.

Excluding some, failing all

Anyone can see that the bridge isn’t suitable for people with mobility needs. The accessibility issues are visible from across the canal—and disability advocates drew attention to them before construction began.

Interestingly, Calatrava’s firm states that the initial design submitted in the late 1990s incorporated a stairlift. The city council rejected that feature, claiming that wheelchair users could take the Vaporetto water taxi instead. 

The city failed to appreciate that universal design—designing for usability by as many people as possible—benefits all users. An inclusive design approach can help protect against problems that otherwise go overlooked.

After just a few months of daily use, Constitution Bridge’s other issues became apparent.

One argument for the bridge’s controversial location was that it strategically connects the railway station with the Piazzale Roma, making it an important passageway for tourists and locals alike. However, the bridge’s 284 stairs make traversing it difficult for both tourists with rolling suitcases and residents with small children in buggies. 

The stairs’ glass surface led to additional problems. Despite undergoing special treatment, they were slippery and became more so in wet or foggy conditions, common to Venetian winters. The height of the stairs is also low, and their depth varies throughout the bridge. All of these design factors contribute to falls, especially among rushing commuters, canal-gazing tourists, elderly users and those with vision impairments.

The mounting cost of exclusion

Five years after the bridge opened, the city attempted an after-the-fact modification, installing a red, round chairlift in 2013 to make it more accessible. The €1.5 million system took ages to cross the canal, became unbearably hot in the summer and suffered from frequent technical malfunctions. In 2019, only six years after the lift opened, the Italian Court of Auditors ordered Venice to scrap the system, deeming it an expensive failure. The decommissioning cost the city about €40,000. 

Over these same years, the city attempted to limit slips and falls by applying resin and nonslip stickers and by placing keep-off signs on the glass portions of the bridge (which was most of it) during the winter. In 2018, city officials went a step further, replacing some of the glass slabs with stone. Unfortunately, the falls continued–as did the lawsuits—and in 2022, despite the negative aesthetic impact, the city decided to replace all the glass with stone, allocating about  €500,000 to the replacement which began in 2024. 

From 2008 to 2022, 106 people sued the city of Venice for damages, many having sustained serious injuries like broken chins, upper arms and shoulders. In 2019, the Italian Court of Auditors fined Calatrava €78,000 for gross negligence, holding him responsible for design decisions that had contributed to the bridge’s ongoing issues. It also fined a Venetian engineer who worked on the bridge €11,000. That same year, when the Court ordered the decommissioning of the cable car, it placed blame on the project’s managers, opening the door for the city of Venice to bring legal action against them.

The ripple effects of inaccessibility 

Fifteen years of lawsuits, physical injuries, reputational damage and wasted taxpayers’ money—nearly all of which could have been avoided had the business of Venice ensured that Calatrava incorporated aspects of universal and inclusive design from the start.

Had the bridge been designed for all users—including those with mobility needs—the city would never have needed to attempt to implement an after-the-fact modification. Likewise, if all types of users—parents, the elderly, wheelchair users, those with vision impairments and locals—had been included in the design process, other design issues–such as the stairs’ slippery surface and changing depth—may have been identified and fixed before construction. In a city with more than 400 bridges designed for safe daily use, the idea of designing a commuter bridge with inconsistent dimensions baffles some Venetians. Local residents who navigate bridges daily in all conditions could have offered invaluable insights to the foreign design firm.

But this isn't really a story about bridges. It's a story about what happens when we design people out instead of designing people in. Every time we create something—whether it's a bridge, a workplace or a policy—we're making a choice about whose experiences count.

When Venice rejected Calatrava's accessibility features—and when Calatrava didn’t push back on that choice—they weren't just making a design decision. They were deciding that some residents didn't deserve the dignity of crossing their own city independently. They were saying that the inconvenience of inclusion wasn't worth the investment. 

That choice rippled outward for fifteen years—in every person who couldn't access their own neighbourhood, every tourist who struggled with luggage, every elderly resident who faced an unnecessary barrier. It also rippled out in terms of wasted euros that could have gone to improving other aspects of the city for its residents. 

Soon, the saga of the Constitution Bridge will come to a close, but its story offers a crucial lesson for other businesses: failing to put accessibility at the core of your operations and failing to use universal design as the backbone of your built environment will have powerful, long-lasting effects on both your people and your pocketbook. Venice's fifteen-year struggle shows that accessibility isn't a cost—it's an investment that pays dividends by avoiding lawsuits, reducing risk and creating environments that actually work for everyone they're meant to serve.