Similar to the English expression “when hell freezes over,” an Italian saying goes, “I’ll do it when the bridge to Messina is finished.”
The fantasy of a scaffold associating the central area to Sicily across the Waterways of Messina returns to Roman times, when Delegate Metellus hung together barrels and wood to move 100 conflict elephants from Carthage to Rome in 252 BCE, as per works by Pliny the Senior.
Like water under the bridge, a number of plans, including a brief idea for a tunnel, have come and gone since then.
The longest suspension bridge in the world would cross the Straits of Messina and be two miles (3.2 kilometers) long if constructed.
After Transport Minister Matteo Salvini revived a plan that was first pushed forward when Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister, a decree passed by the government of Giorgia Meloni last month now suggests that the massive engineering project might actually be completed.
In 2006, the bid to fabricate the extension was granted to a consortium drove by the Italian firm Salini Impregilo, presently called WeBuild. At the point when Berlusconi’s administration fell that year, the designs to fabricate the extension imploded with his administration after the following head of the state, Romano Prodi, considered it a misuse of cash and a gamble to the climate.
Since then, a number of governments have attempted to revive it, and Meloni, Salvini, and Berlusconi’s coalition included it on their list of campaign promises. The bridge was Salvini’s top priority when he was transportation minister, betting his legacy on it.
WeBuild, which still has the bid award on paper, sued the government for breach of contract after the project was halted. Despite “expressions of interest from all over the world, including China,” Salvini told the Foreign Press Association in Rome in March when he presented the plan, WeBuild remains the most likely company to be given the job back.
He said, without specifically mentioning WeBuild, “The ones who won the tender in 2006 are the ones who will most likely continue with the final version of the project.”
On April 18, Michele Longo, the director of engineering at WeBuild, was invited to parliament to discuss the revived plan.
24 of the most incredible bridges in the world “The bridge over the Strait of Messina is a project that can begin construction right away. The project can begin as soon as the contract is reinstated and updated, Longo informed parliament. The executive design is anticipated to take eight months, while the bridge will take slightly more than six years to construct.
According to the plan that was presented to the transportation ministry, the project will cost 4.5 billion euros ($4.96 billion) for the bridge itself and 6.75 billion euros ($7.4 billion) for the infrastructure that will support it on both sides. This infrastructure will include upgrading road and rail links, building terminals, and preparing the land and seabed to “reduce hydrogeological risks” during construction.
Starting around 1965, 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) out in the open assets has proactively been spent on practicality studies, as per Italian depository division. Salvini frequently asserts that “not building the bridge will cost more than building it.”
The gang and the fault lines
Despite the plans’ apparent progress, the obstacles are difficult.
Southern Italy is inclined to debasement with two significant coordinated criminal organizations – the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra – succeeding in penetrating development projects.
The new capture of Cosa Nostra supervisor Matteo Messina Denaro following 30 years on the lam in Sicily addressed a triumph.
According to the testimony of informants who contributed to Denaro’s arrest, Denaro and other mob bosses were opposed to the construction of the bridge. This was due, in part, to the fact that organized crime syndicates thrive on poverty and underdevelopment.
Fears persist despite this. An anti-Mafia study by the Nomos Centre think tank, which was published 20 years ago and is currently being updated, warned that parts of the project, like transportation and supply, could be controlled by criminals and that local mobs could demand protection money.
Concerns have been played down by Salvini. He recently stated to parliament, “I’m not afraid of criminal infiltration,” and “we will be able to guarantee that the best Italian, European, and global companies work there.” We are working on creating supervisory bodies for each euro invested in the bridge.
Additionally, there are geophysical issues that might be even more challenging to solve. The Waterway of Messina is along a separation point where a 7.1 quake in 1908, killed in excess of 100,000 individuals and generated waves that crushed the beach front regions on both the Calabrian and Sicilian sides of the water. It is still the deadliest seismic event ever recorded in Europe.
The waters, as well, are fierce. According to NASA, the strong wave patterns can be seen from space and the currents change every six hours. They are so strong that they frequently tear seaweed off the seabed.
Under WeBuild’s unique arrangement, which is the only one presently viable since offers have not been, and may not be, opened, the scaffold deck would be worked to endure winds of as much as 300 kilometers 60 minutes – and could remain open to traffic with ends up to 150 kilometers 60 minutes.
There would be three vehicle paths toward every path – two for traffic, and one for crisis, with train lines in the center. Under the ongoing arrangement, 6,000 vehicles and trucks could pass every hour, and 200 trains could spend every day.
traumatic for wildlife.
Hippies have long contended the scaffold would be decimating to the territory and natural life.
A spokesperson for the organization Legambiente states, “In the Strait of Messina, a very important place of transit for birds and marine mammals, one of the highest concentrations of biodiversity in the world is concentrated” and that the bridge would disrupt migration routes between Africa and Europe during and after construction.
The World Wildlife Fund has also opposed the project’s revival. According to WWF Institutional Relations director Stefano Lenzi, the EU Habitats Directive protects the entire Strait of Messina region. Before the plan was put on hold in 2006, the group was preparing a lawsuit to stop it because it would have violated European Union protected areas. The half-hour ferry, according to environmental groups, is the least disruptive option.
Salvini insists that there would be no doubt that the bridge would have a significant impact on the economy. He says that cargo ships from Asia could dock in Sicily, and those goods could be transported to Europe by high-speed trains once high-speed rails are built on Sicily, even though they do not yet exist.
On both sides of the straits, public opinion is still divided, with those who can benefit from increased trade and easier tourism generally supporting it and those who don’t mind Sicily being isolated largely opposing it.
The scaffold has never been as near being worked as it is presently, after Meloni marked the declaration to make ready for substantial designs to be set up. The announcement will become regulation in June, and Salvini said he desires to kick things off by July 2024.
The Waterways of Messina have for quite some time been compared with pained waters. There is a reason why Homer put Scylla and Charybdis in the den of sea monsters. Even if the only monsters are ecological and criminal, the dream of building the bridge to Messina will not be realized until it is finished, regardless of when it happens.
