每日英語跟讀 Ep.K347: Venice Gets a Grip on a Star Architect’s Slippery Bridge

As tourists wandered obliviously on the glass floor of the footbridge, locals proceeded with caution. Venetians made sure to walk on the narrow stone strip at the center, some lifting fogged glasses to keep their eyes on the ground. When a visitor tripped, they barely lifted their gaze.

當遊客在人行天橋的玻璃地板上徘徊時，當地人小心翼翼地繼續前進。威尼斯人確保走在中心的狹窄石帶上，有些人舉起霧的眼鏡，好一邊盯著地上走。當一個訪客被絆倒時，他們幾乎沒有抬起目光。

“That is not a bridge,” said Angelo Xalle, 71, a retired port worker who recalled helping people with broken chins or foreheads get up from its sleek floor. “It’s a trap.”

「這不是座橋」，71歲退休港口員工薩爾說，他回想起幫助因滑溜橋面而跌斷下巴或額頭的人起身，「這是個陷阱」。

The bridge, Ponte della Costituzione, by star architect Santiago Calatrava, is a multimillion-dollar work of glass and steel that opened in 2008. Its smooth curve above the Grand Canal, near Venice’s train station, was meant to symbolize the city’s embrace of modernity, but it has become better known as a stage for ruinous tumbles and dangerous slips.

這座橋由明星建築師聖地牙哥·卡拉特拉瓦（Santiago Calatrava）設計，是一座價值數百萬美元的玻璃和鋼鐵作品，於2008年開放。它在威尼斯火車站附近的大運河上方的平滑曲線象徵著這座城市對現代性的擁抱，但它已成為一個眾所周知的毀滅性翻滾和危險滑倒的舞臺。

Now, after years of protests and problems, the city has decided to replace the translucent glass with less slippery — and less glamorous — trachyte stone.

現在，在多年的抗議和各種問題後，市政府決定以比較不滑、也沒那麼美麗的粗面岩，取代透明玻璃。

“People hurt themselves, and they sue the administration,” said Francesca Zaccariotto, Venice’s public works official. “We have to intervene.”

「民眾受傷，他們就告政府」，威尼斯公共事務官員札卡里歐托說，「我們必須介入」。

The city’s decision to allocate 500,000 euros, or about $565,000, to replace the bridge’s glass section comes after several failed attempts to limit slips with resin and nonslip stickers. Last month, as the winter cold and rains made the floor especially dangerous, officials placed keep-off signs on the glass portion of the bridge, which is most of it.

該市決定撥款50萬歐元，約合565，000美元，以取代橋樑的玻璃部分，此前幾次嘗試用樹脂和防滑貼紙限制滑倒失敗。上個月，由於冬季的寒冷和降雨使地板特別危險，官員們在橋的玻璃部分放置了防範標誌，這是大部分。

Acclaimed around the world for work including the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in New York, Calatrava was commissioned to design the bridge in 1999. When it opened nine years later, after protests about delays and soaring costs, complaints about falls began quickly.

卡拉特拉瓦（Calatrava）的作品享譽全球，包括紐約的世界貿易中心交通樞紐，於1999年受委託設計這座橋。九年後，當它開業時，在抗議延誤和成本飆升之後，關於跌倒的抱怨迅速開始。

Protests intensified in 2013, when the city installed a cable car on the bridge to make it more accessible. The red, round cabin — not designed by Calatrava — cost about 1.5 million euros, was slow to cross the bridge and became unbearably hot in the summer. It was later dismantled.

抗議活動在2013年加劇，當時該市在橋上安裝了纜車，使其更容易進入。紅色的圓形機艙 - 不是由Calatrava設計的 - 耗資約150萬歐元，過橋的速度很慢，夏天變得難以忍受。它後來被拆除。

In 2018, the city replaced some of the slabs of glass with trachyte, but during the pandemic, when national television filmed people walking over the bridge to illustrate the return to normalcy after a lockdown, it inevitably caught someone slipping. Last year, the administration gathered

the funds to fully replace the glass.

2018年，該市用粗面岩取代了一些玻璃板，但在疫情期間，當國家電視台拍攝人們走過橋以說明封鎖后恢復正常時，它不可避免地抓住了某人滑倒。去年，政府籌集資金以完全更換玻璃。

“We can’t always do poetry,” Zaccariotto said. “We must give security.”

「我們不能老是搞浪漫」，札卡里歐托說，「我們必須保障安全」。Source article: https://udn.com/news/story/6904/6076910