Strait of Messina Bridge

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Satellite photo of the Strait of Messina, taken June 2002. NASA image.

The Strait of Messina Bridge is a planned suspension bridge that will cross the Strait of Messina, a narrow section of water between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of mainland Italy. For years discussion and planning for the bridge have been taking place; under Romano Prodi in 2006 the project was cancelled,^[1] however since winning the elections in 2008 Silvio Berlusconi has announced that the plans will be quickly restarted.^[2]

Construction was to begin in 2006 and was expected to be completed in 2012. If completed, it will be the largest suspension bridge in the world, doubling the main span of the Akashi-Kaikyo. While the bridge had been planned for many decades, the idea for a bridge has been around since Roman times. A design for a restrained buoyant submarine tube tunnel, that would have been anchored to the seabed, was submitted by British engineer Alan Grant in an international competition promoted by the Italian government in 1970. This was awarded one of six equal first prizes.

Two ministers of the government of Romano Prodi (18 May 2006) stated their opposition to the project when taking up office. As of August 2006, the project was announced as "under review" for budgetary reasons. Citing concerns that the project was too expensive, was likely to enrich criminal gangs, and might not be earthquake-proof, the project was terminated in October 2006, over protests from southern Italian legislators.

View from Messina across the strait onto the tip of the boot of mainland Italy.

1 2006 plan
2 Controversy and concerns
3 The Strait
4 History of Project
5 External links
6 References
7 Further reading

[edit] 2006 plan

The 2006 plan called for a single-span suspension bridge with a central span of 3,300 m (about 2 miles). This would have made the span more than 60% longer than the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan (the largest suspension bridge in the world at 1,991 metres).

Plans called for six traffic lanes (two driving lanes and one emergency lane in each direction), two railway tracks and two pedestrian lanes. In order to provide a minimum vertical clearance for navigation of 65 metres, the height of the two towers was to be 382.6 metres. This would have been taller than the Millau Viaduct in France (currently the tallest bridge in the world at 341 metres). The bridge's suspension system would have relied on two pairs of steel cables, each with a diameter of 1.24 metres and a total length, between the anchor blocks, of 5,300 metres.

The design included 20.3 km of road links and 19.8 km of railway links to the bridge. On the mainland, the bridge was to connect to the new stretch of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway (A3) and to the planned Naples-Reggio Calabria High-Speed railway line; on the Sicilian side, to the Messina-Catania (A18) and Messina-Palermo (A20) motorways as well as the new Messina railway station (to be built by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana).

Geographically, the bridge was planned to connect Reggio Calabria to Messina, the two cities which face each other on either side of the strait, and form a single city. This ambitious urban project was called Area Metropolitana integrata dello Stretto (Integrated Metropolitan Area of the Strait) or simply Città dello Stretto (City of the Strait). Among the controversies surrounding the building of the bridge was strong opposition to the formation of the new city by various Sicilian nationalist groups.

A construction consortium was chosen in 2005, with actual construction set to begin in the second half of 2006. Completion was projected to take six years, at a projected cost of € 4.6 billion.

On October 12, 2006, the Italian Parliament voted 272 to 232 in favor of abandoning the plan due to the bridge's "doubtful usefulness and viability," as well as the inability of the already burdened Italian treasury to bear its share of the cost. Additionally, transport minister Alessandro Bianchi pointed out that the road and rail links leading to the location of the proposed bridge are not capable of supporting enough traffic to make the bridge profitable. Other reasons for abandoning the plan were earthquake risk, and fears that much of the funds would be diverted to organized crime.^[3]^[4] On April 15th 2008 Silvio Berlusconi was re-elected prime minister of Italy and vowed to restart the project to build the bridge. ^[5]

[edit] Controversy and concerns

Many also questioned the priority of the bridge, since some towns in Sicily are still without running water,^[6] and claimed that the money used for the bridge would be better spent elsewhere.

There are also those who claimed that the bridge would be totally unnecessary, since the local economy is already providing for the conversion of a local former NATO airport into a commercial terminal to export vegetables to northern Europe. Alternatively, a much cheaper revamping of the current structures is claimed to be sufficient (for instance, the ferry lines on the Calabria side are now accessible by trucks only by driving through very narrow streets, which are a tight bottleneck for transport).

Finally, there were concerns about the environmental impact of the bridge, its actual feasibility, and whether it could resist earthquakes, not uncommon in the region.

[edit] The Strait

The Strait of Messina is a funnel-shaped arm of sea that connects the Ionian Sea in the south to the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north. The width of the strait varies from a maximum of approximately 16 km (between Capo d'Alì in Sicily and Punta Pellaro in Calabria) to a minimum of approximately 3 km between Capo Peloro in Sicily and Torre Cavallo in Calabria. A similar distance separates Pezzo and Ganzirri; in that point, the strait is only 72 m deep, while in other places it can reach 2000 m deep.

The Strait is characterized by strong currents, which together with the frequently observed phenomenon of Fata Morgana have contributed to make it an important place in Greek and classic mythology. Homer described two monstrous creatures, Scylla and Charybdis, hidden on either side of the strait to attack passing ships.

The same currents provide the Strait with a unique ecosystem, providing a habitat for species of animals and plants found nowhere else in the Mediterranean. Also unique is the Strait's meteorology, with air currents providing a special route used by a majority of migratory birds.

[edit] History of Project

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The Romans considered building a bridge joining Calabria and Sicily made of boats and barrels. Charlemagne considered joining the two sides with a series of bridges. This idea was revived by the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard in the 11th century and by Ruggero II of Sicily in the 13th century. In 1876, Giuseppe Zanardelli was convinced that the strait could be linked by either a bridge or a tunnel. In 1866, public works minister Stefano Jacini gave Alfredo Cottrau, an internationally recognized engineer, the task of drawing up plans for a bridge between Calabria and Sicily. Later, in 1870, Navone came forward with plans for a tunnel based on Napoleon's idea of a tunnel under the English Channel. This tunnel was to start at Contesse and was to pass below Messina and Ganzirri at a depth of 150 meters, crossing the Strait to Punta Pezzo and resurfacing at Torre Cavallo.

A geologic study of the area of the Strait of Messina was published in 1909 (historical Arch. Sicilian year XXXIV f.1,2) and in 1921, a study of an undersea tunnel was released to the Geographic Conference of Florence. A group of railroad civil engineers studied the possibility of a suspension bridge but nothing came of it. The idea was revived in the 1953 by master bridge-builder David B. Steinman with a plan to build a bridge that crossed the Strait using two 220-meter towers sunk in 120-meter-deep waters. The proposed 1,524 meter span would have represented a world record, eclipsing the then-longest 1,275-meter center span of the Golden Gate Bridge and besting the 2,256-meter Mackinac Straits Bridge (then in planning) with a total length of 2,988 meters. The proposed structure would have cleared the sea by 50 meters to allow shipping passage. The proposed structure was, in the American style, to have had two decks, the lower of which was to carry two rail lines, and seven meters above, a road deck 30 meters wide. The main cables would have been a meter in diameter. The bridge would have required 12,000 workers and cost hundreds of billions of lire to build.