The bridge has been controversial due to the impact of earthquakes, strong currents in the strait, concerns of disruption of bird migration routes, and the infiltration of mafia groups Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta in area construction projects.[2]
While a bridge across the Strait of Messina had been proposed since ancient times, the first detailed plan was made in the 1990s for a suspension bridge. The project was cancelled in 2006 under prime minister Romano Prodi.[3] On 6 March 2009, as part of a massive new public works programme, prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's government announced that construction of the Messina Bridge would indeed go ahead, pledging €1.3billion as a contribution to the total cost, estimated at €6.1billion.[4] The project was cancelled again on 26 February 2013, by primeinister Mario Monti's government, due to budget constraints.[5] A decade later, the project was revived again with a decree by Giorgia Meloni's government, on 16 March 2023,[6] which received presidential approval on 31 March 2023.[7][8]
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 16km (9.9 miles) (between Capo d'Alì in Sicily and Punta Pellaro in Calabria) to a minimum of approximately 3km (1.9 miles) between Capo Peloro in Sicily and Torre Cavallo in Calabria.[9] A similar distance separates Pezzo and Ganzirri; at that point, the strait is only 72m (236ft) deep, while in other places it can reach 200m (660ft) deep. It is also characterised by strong currents, and the region has significant seismicity.
The idea of a bridge crossing the strait is an old one. The Romans considered building a bridge joining Calabria and Sicily made of boats and barrels. Pliny the Elder, a philosopher and Roman military leader born in 23 AD, wrote of a plan to bridge the strait with a series of connecting boats. The idea was abandoned, as it was clear that more traffic plied the strait in a north-south than east-west direction, so any structure on water could not be permanent.[10]
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 Roger II of Sicily in the 12th. 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 recognised engineer, the task of drawing up plans for a bridge between Calabria and Sicily. Later, in 1870, Navone proposed building 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 150m (490ft), crossing the strait to Punta Pezzo and resurfacing at Torre Cavallo.
A geologic study of the strait 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 railway civil engineers studied the possibility of a suspension bridge, but nothing came of it. The idea was revived in 1953 by bridge builder David B. Steinman, with a plan to build a bridge that crossed the strait using two 220m (720ft) towers sunk in 120m (390ft) deep waters. The proposed 1,524m (5,000ft) span would have represented a world record, eclipsing the then-longest 1,275m (4,183ft) centre span of the Golden Gate Bridge and beating the 2,256m (7,402ft)Mackinac Straits Bridge (then in planning) with a total length of 2,988m (9,803ft). The proposed structure was to clear the sea by 50m (160ft) for navigation and have two decks—a lower deck carrying two rail lines, and 7m (23ft) above, a road deck 30m (98ft) wide. The main cables were designed with a diameter of 1m (39in). The construction of the bridge would have required 12,000 workers and cost hundreds of billions of lire.
In the 1960s, a wide variety of proposals were advanced, including everything from submerged tubes to floating struts, pontoons, and a revolving central section of the bridge. None turned out to be realistic.
In 1969, an international design competition was arranged.
In the 1970s, feasibility studies were undertaken by the state railways, leading to the creation of a private company with responsibility for planning the strait's crossing.
In the 1980s, the Messina Strait Company was set up with support from the state railways, the regions, and IRI. It concluded that it would be feasible to build a suspension bridge.
Detailed plans followed in the 1990s, with final approval from the High Council of Public Works (Consiglio Superiore dei Lavori Pubblici).
Development of detailed plans
Cross-sectional diagram of the Strait of Messina Bridge
The 2006 plan called for a single-span suspension bridge with a central span of 3,300m (10,800ft). This would have made the span more than 60% longer than the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkey—currently the longest suspension bridge in the world, at 2,023m (6,637ft).[11]
Plans called for four 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 65m (213ft), the height of the two towers was to be 382.6m (1,255ft). This would have been taller than the Millau Viaduct in France (currently the tallest bridge in the world, at 341m (1,119ft)). The bridge's suspension system would have relied on two pairs of steel cables, each with a diameter of 1.24m (49in) and a total length, between the anchor blocks, of 5,300m (17,400ft).[12]
The design included 20.3km (12.6 miles) of road links and 19.8km (12.3 miles) 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 rail 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).[13]
The bridge was planned to connect Reggio Calabria to Messina, the two cities that face each other on either side of the strait, in order to form a single metropolitan area. 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.[13]
Among the engineers who participated in the project was Giorgio Diana, who mainly dealt with the aeroelastic aspect.[14]
Abandonment and revival
On 12 October 2006, the Italian Parliament voted 272 to 232 in favour 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 the bridge would enrich the networks of organized crime in Italy, such as Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta.[3][15]
On 15 April 2008, Silvio Berlusconi was re-elected prime minister of Italy and vowed to restart the project to build the bridge. The following month, Altero Matteoli, Italy's minister of infrastructure and transport, confirmed the government's intent to restart work on the bridge in a letter to Pietro Ciucci, the president of Società Stretto di Messina.[16]
On 6 March 2009, as part of a massive new public works programme, Berlusconi's government announced that plans to construct the Messina bridge had been revived, pledging €1.3billion as a contribution to its estimated cost of €6.1billion. Berlusconi claimed that work would be completed by 2016. Until 2006, when the project was halted, the work had been assigned to a consortium of Impregilo (now called Webuild), Condotte d'Acqua, Cooperativa Muratori & Cementisti, and Consorzio Stabile A.C.I., alongside Spain's Sacyr and Japan's IHI Corporation.[11]
On 23 December 2009, preparatory work began, with the diversion of the Tyrrhenian railway at Cannitello on the Italian mainland side of the strait.[17]
In February 2013, the project was shut down by Mario Monti, the new Italian premier, for lack of funds.[5]
In September 2016, the project was reconsidered by the government of Matteo Renzi.[18]
On 3 June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, premier Giuseppe Conte brought up the topic of the bridge, declaring that the government would evaluate the resumption of work without prejudice.[19][20]
On 22 April 2021, the CEO of Webuild, Pietro Salini, in a joint press conference with the President of the Sicilian RegionNello Musumeci, announced that he was ready to build the Strait of Messina Bridge, starting immediately with the work and on the basis of the executive project and construction site approved definitively in 2013. He declared that he already had the four-billion-euro coverage necessary for the construction and that he could obtain the other two necessary for the infrastructures connected to it from private financing.[21][22]
On 19 March, WeBuild's Pietro Salini said work on the bridge should begin by 2024, with the opening of the project scheduled for 2032.[23]
On 31 March, the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella approved the Decreto Ponte ("bridge decree").[7]
Contracting parties
A construction consortium, led by Impregilo, was chosen in 2005, with work set to begin in the second half of 2006. The bridge was designed by Danish architects at Dissing+Weitling in close collaboration with the Danish engineering firm COWI.[24]
On 27 March 2006, Impregilo and Stretto di Messina announced that they had signed a contract assigning final project planning to a general contractor. Impregilo S.p.A., the lead partner, had a 45% share. Other participants were Spain's Sacyr (18.70%), the Italian companies Società Italiana per Condotte D'Acqua S.p.A. (15%) and Cooperativa Muratori & Cementisti-C.M.C. of Ravenna (13%), Japan's IHI Corporation (6.30%), and Consorzio Stabile A.C.I. S.c.p.a (2%). The general contractor would also be assisted by the Danish and Canadian companies COWI A/S, Sund & Baelt A/S, and Buckland & Taylor Ltd., who would handle project engineering. Completion was planned to take six years, at an estimated cost of €3.9billion.[25]
The Akashi Kaikyō Bridge, built in 1998 in Japan by IHI Corporation, one of the companies in charge of building the Messina Bridge.The Øresund Bridge, built in 1999 by COWI A/S, one of the companies to be involved in building the Messina Bridge.
The bridge has been controversial due to the impact of earthquakes, strong currents in the strait, concerns about disruption of bird migration routes, and possible infiltration of the mafia groups Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta in area construction projects.[2]
Supporters see the bridge as a huge job-creation scheme and a boost for tourism. However, opponents question the priority of the bridge, claiming that if the government concentrated instead on making Sicily's roads more efficient, drivers would be able to reach the coast more quickly at a fraction of the bridge's cost. Others believe that the bridge is quite unnecessary, since the local economy is already providing for the conversion of the local former NATOComiso 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 to trucks only by driving through very narrow streets, which are a tight bottleneck for transport). Another argument against the bridge is the poor state of transport infrastructure in Sicily, particularly the railroad and the A20 autostrada linking Messina to Palermo, and the poor condition of the A2 autostrada on the mainland, linking Reggio Calabria to Naples.[citation needed]
The greatest structural design problem of the bridge is the aerodynamic stability of its deck under wind and seismic activity.[27]
The Strait of Messina is a narrow strait between the eastern tip of Sicily and the western tip of Calabria in Southern Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north with the Ionian Sea to the south, within the central Mediterranean. At its narrowest point, between Torre Faro and Villa San Giovanni, it is 3.1 km (1.9 mi) wide. At the city of Messina, it is 5.1 km (3.2 mi) wide. The strait's maximum depth is about 250 m (820 ft).
The Pylons of Messina are two free-standing steel towers, the Sicilian one in Torre Faro and the Calabrian one in Villa San Giovanni. They were used from 1955 to 1994 to carry a 220 kilovolt power line across the Strait of Messina, between the Scilla substation in Calabria on the Italian mainland at 38°14′42″N15°40′59″E and the Messina-Santo substation in Sicily at 38°15′57″N15°39′04″E.
A Bering Strait crossing is a hypothetical bridge or tunnel that would span the relatively narrow and shallow Bering Strait between the Chukotka Peninsula in Russia and the Seward Peninsula in the U.S. state of Alaska. The crossing would provide a connection linking the Americas and Afro-Eurasia.
The Osmangazi Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Gulf of İzmit at its narrowest point, 2,620 m (8,600 ft). The bridge links the Turkish city of Gebze to the Yalova Province and carries the O-5 motorway across the gulf.
The Strait of Gibraltar crossing is a hypothetical bridge or tunnel spanning the Strait of Gibraltar that would connect Europe and Africa. The governments of Spain and Morocco appointed a joint committee to investigate the feasibility of linking the two continents in 1979, which resulted in the much broader Euromed Transport project.
An orthotropic bridge or orthotropic deck is typically one whose fabricated deck consists of a structural steel deck plate stiffened either longitudinally with ribs or transversely, or in both directions. This allows the fabricated deck both to directly bear vehicular loads and to contribute to the bridge structure's overall load-bearing behaviour. The orthotropic deck may be integral with or supported on a grid of deck framing members, such as transverse floor beams and longitudinal girders. All these various choices for the stiffening elements, e.g., ribs, floor beams and main girders, can be interchanged, resulting in a great variety of orthotropic panels.
A submerged floating tunnel (SFT), also known as submerged floating tube bridge (SFTB), suspended tunnel, or Archimedes bridge, is a proposed design for a tunnel that floats in water, supported by its buoyancy.
A fixed link or fixed crossing is a permanent, unbroken road or rail connection across water that uses some combination of bridges, tunnels, and causeways and does not involve intermittent connections such as drawbridges or ferries. A bridge–tunnel combination is commonly used for major fixed links.
Webuild SpA is an Italian industrial group specialising in construction and civil engineering. The company was formally founded in 2014 as the result of the merger by incorporation of Salini into Impregilo. Webuild is the largest Italian engineering and general contractor group and a global player in the construction sector.
The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, also known as the Third Bosphorus Bridge, is a vehicular bridge over the Bosphorus strait, to the north of Istanbul's two older suspension bridges, the 15 July Martyrs Bridge being the First Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge the Second Bosphorus Bridge. The bridge is located near the entrance to the Black Sea from the Bosphorus strait, between Garipçe in Sarıyer on the European side and Poyrazköy in Beykoz on the Asian side.
The Berlin–Palermo railway axis is project No. 1 of the Trans-European high-speed rail network (TEN-R), which involves the creation of a 2,200-kilometre-long (1,400 mi) high-speed rail line between Berlin and Palermo. It is designated as one of the main transport links connecting Central and Southern Europe, tracking through Germany, Austria and Italy.
The Central Spine Road 2 or Malacca Strait Bridge is a proposed bridge that would connect Telok Gong, near Masjid Tanah, Malacca in Peninsular Malaysia to Rupat Island and Dumai in Sumatra island, Indonesia. The project has been submitted for government approval, and is expected to take 10 years to complete. Once completed, the 48-kilometre-long (30 mi) bridge will be the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world. The project will have two cable-stayed bridges and one suspension bridge, both the longest in the world.
The Metropolitan Area of Strait of Messina, is the urban agglomeration around the Strait of Messina, and is one of the most populated and important areas of Southern Italy. It includes part of the Province of Messina, in Sicily, and part of the Province of Reggio Calabria, in Calabria.
The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge is a road suspension bridge in the province of Çanakkale in northwestern Turkey. Situated just south of the coastal towns of Lapseki and Gelibolu, the bridge spans the Dardanelles, about 10 km (6.2 mi) south of the Sea of Marmara. The bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the world—with a main span of 2,023 m, the bridge surpasses the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (1998) in Japan by 32 m (105 ft).
Pietro Salini is an Italian businessman and chief executive officer of Webuild.
The Stretto di Messina S.p.A. company was established in 1981 in implementation of law no. 1158/1971 of the Italian government to design, build and manage the Strait of Messina Bridge.
Enzo Siviero is an Italian engineer, academic, and writer. and also architect, as he received an honoris causa academic degree in architecture from the Polytechnic of Bari in 2009 at the age of 64.
The Genoa Saint George Bridge is a motorway viaduct that crosses the Polcevera river and the districts of Sampierdarena and Cornigliano, in the city of Genoa. It was designed by architect Renzo Piano.
Antonino “Nino” Spirlì is an Italian politician, author, actor and journalist. He became the acting president of Calabria region following the death of Jole Santelli on 15 October 2020. By law, a snap election must be held within 60 days, it did not happen because of the Covid pandemic.
Claudio Borri is an Italian engineer, academic, writer full professor of Construction Science at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Florence.
↑ "Messina Straits Bridge". Structurae. The greatest problem in designing the bridge is the aerodynamic stability of the deck under wind as well as seismic activity.
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