Sometimes new laws are passed in Italian towns and don't happen, but this one has passed, and it seems likely that this one will actually go forward.
There are too many tourists visiting the Cinque Terre (I don't know why some don't go to Porte Venere and other towns that right there and just as nice but not popularized). It's wrecking the experience for everyone, sort of like what has been happening to Venice which almost doesn't have a down season anymore, and Tuscany, where you can go to a small town of 1,000 people and be caught for an hour in a traffic jam to get in, and then not be able to stop because there is no place to park.
Starting this summer to visit Cinque Terre you have to obtain a pass to enter well in advance. They don't know how many passes will be available each day. That will be governed weekly by things like the weather. If the number of visitors that day has been reached and you show up, you will be given a pass for the following day.
The number of visitors has been just too much, and the streets and the paths linking the towns are just taking a pounding from having 2.5 million visitors to these tiny little towns that are no longer towns, but are more like a mini-amusement park.
They are hoping to be able to start this in three months, in time for high season, April through October. They say it is also a safety issue, as the train stations are so packed with tourists that they almost spill out onto the tracks while trains are whizzing by.
These things always change, and are never final, but this is the way it stands right now. The link is here, the picture of the path says it all:
http://genova.repubblica.it/cronaca/...91/?ref=search
Now, if only they'd do something like this for Venice.