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Mini Review Volume 3 Issue 6
The bridge and the ferry on the Po River
Adriana Galvani,1
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Adriana Galvani1
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Regret for the inconvenience: we are taking measures to prevent fraudulent form submissions by extractors and page crawlers. Please type the correct Captcha word to see email ID.
1University of Bologna, Italy
1University of Bologna, Italy
Correspondence: Adriana Galvani, University of Bologna, Free University Mediterranea, Unione Bolognese Naturalisti, Italy,
Received: August 09, 2019 | Published: December 6, 2019
Citation: Galvani A. The bridge and the ferry on the Po River. SociolInt J. 2019;3(6):462-464. DOI: 10.15406/sij.2019.03.00212
Abstract
Rivers have great significance for natural and political life. Water is a source of life, the debris that are transported create fertile territories, the ways drawn by rivers mark the territories, and politically distinguish areas and regions.
The River Po and its Valley in Italy
The position of the river Po in Italy is quite peculiar; it is the result of all the waters coming from the Alps and the Apennines. These mountains form a kind of reversed letter “Y” from which conjunction the Po derives, collecting many other rivers along the slopes. All the Po plain is the construction of the waters which have transported the stones and the sands resulting from the natural processes of physical erosion. The rivers have created a more than 600 km valley, and its construction process is continuing at a fast rate, progressing into the Adriatic Sea, a branch of the Mediterranean Sea.
The Po Delta is a spectacular image of land, marshes and waters, under continue modification. It encompasses natural parks, beaches, and a densely populate areas, since the delta areas are fertile and they offer a rich biodiversity of flora and fauna (Figure 1).1–3
Figure 1 The mountain range with the Po Valley & The River Po Delta
The river Po is the most important river in Italy, and is the fifth one in Europe. Forty kilometers away from its mouth, near the city of Ferrara, on the border between Emilia and Veneto, there are three bridges, those of the highway, the motorway, the railway.4
Rivers and bridges at the core center of the increased traffic
During the summer 2018 the topic of Italian bridges has been at the center of the media communication because of several accidents. One has happened in the city of Bologna, where a tank truck, containing oil, had broken out causing some casualties and the block of an artery of the ring road.5
The most serious incident has occurred on August 14th in Genoa, where a highway bridge, built in the sixties, has collapsed, even if the bridge had been built with the most modern techniques and had become a symbol of architectural innovation.6 For some time, technicians have intervened with reinforcements and adjustments, able to resist to the increased traffic, but some construction materials have not held up. The collapse caused 43 deaths, and 600 people living nearby were moved. It has been one of the worst news of the summer that had hit the whole of Europe.
Fortunately, the restoration of the Po River bridge, constructed in the fifties, had started before all these sad situations. The motorway along the suburbs of the city of Ferrara has been interrupted for the entire summer season 2018 for rearrangement; the iron parts were needing polishing and the road surface needed repairs for the frequency of vehicles that insist on heavy traffic.
The passage has been therefore not allowed, not even for pedestrians. The motorized vehicles forcibly passed on the expressway; the trains, even the direct trains, stopped at the immediate stations, on the south and north of the bridge, the buses stopped at the opposite nearby villages. Then the passage took effect with small ferries, operating thanks to local volunteers, assisted by the local Carabinieri (policemen).The utilized small ferries could carry 11 passengers and 5 bicycles, as bicycles are the mandatory components in a completely flat area, which facilitate the crossings between cities and suburbs in the countryside.7,8
The inconvenience of the bridge restoration, not a little one however, has had a positive response; it had created a new social climate of solidarity among the users of the ferry, who gathered in groups to wait for the passages, while, in the meantime, they told each other their stories of inconvenience due to the works.
On the other hand, the passage was perceived like a small cruise, so, even an unfavorable situation has been considered an opportunity, thanks to the free transportation, which allowed to enjoy the beauty of the landscape.
In a hot summer like that of the 2018, a trip on the river made the people to enjoy the pleasure of the river breeze, and that of being rocked on the gentle waves of the great river, which, with its irrigation and its delta into the sea gives the inhabitants the best food in the world and the best bread in Europe (Figure 2-7).9–11
Figure 2 The works on the Po Bridge and the small new ferry, for the small passage (Photo Galvani).
Figure 3 A new small newborn tourist river port (Photo Galvani).
Figure 4 The green line and the road following the Po River (Photo Galvani).
Figure 5 The green along the river Po with the church tower in Occhiobello (Nice Eye) (Photo Galvani).
Figure 6 The planted green next to the banks of the Po river as a reinforcement against floods (Photo Galvani).
Figure 7 Sunset on the Po (Photo Galvani).
Acknowledgments
None.
Conflicts of interest
The author declares there are no conflicts of interest.
Funding
None.
References
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