The incredible £11.7bn plan for world’s longest suspension bridge gets green light | World | News
Italy gave green light to create a longest hanging bridge in the world with great support in the south of the country. The project, which has been discussed for decades, promises to provide a direct connection from the Southern Italian Sicily to the Calabria region in the mainland.
The Bosphorus of the Messina Bridge has been delayed several times, but it is seen as an important step in improving the economic wealth of the South. Sicily, one of the poorest regions of the Mediterranean, suffers from the lack of road connections to the north. The project is the main priority for the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni government and is estimated to have cost € 13.5 billion (£ 11.7 billion). Sky News.
The Italian Government gave a final approval to the project of the Economic Planning and Sustainable Development Committee (CIPESS) project.
The project was given to a consortium led by the Italian infrastructure group Webuild. Initially, they won the offer to build the bridge in 2006 before the plan was canceled.
Webuild was behind the longest existing suspension bridge, the Canakkale Bridge in Türkiye, which was opened in 2022.
Webuild says it was built using a similar engineering design for the Messina Bridge, including a fighter -like deck shape with openings to allow the structure to pass through a wing profile and the wind.
The Bosphorus of the Messina is expected to measure approximately 3.7 kilometers (2.2 miles) and the suspended opening reached 3.3 kilometers (more than two miles) and the Canakkale Bridge exceeded 1,277 meters (4,189 feet).
Italian Prime Minister and Transport Minister Matteo Salvini said at a press conference in Rome, with three car strips surrounded by a double -way railway in each direction, the bridge will have a capacity of 6,000 cars a day.
Salvinin, this, the vehicle from 100 minutes to 10 minutes of ferry will reduce the time to pass from 100 minutes to 10 minutes.
After the Sign of the Audit Court of Italy, it is expected to start next year, while the preliminary work may begin between the end of September and early October. Salvini, despite bureaucratic delays, the bridge is expected to be completed between 2032-2033.
Meloni said that the bridge would be a symbol of an engineering symbol with a global importance ”.
Environmental groups, stating concerns that the project will affect immigrant birds, the environmental work is an obligatory necessity of the project and does not show that any environmental damage will be balanced.
The original Government Decree, which activates the bridge project, included the language that provided control over the Mafia measures to the Ministry of Interior. However, the President of the Italian President insisted that the project was subject to anti -Mafia legislation, which is valid for all large -scale infrastructure projects in the country, except for concerns that the temporary regulation would weaken controls.
Salvini said that it is the biggest priority to exclude the organized crime project and will comply with the protocols used for EXPO 2015 World Fair and the upcoming Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games. “We should pay attention to make the entire supply chain without permeable for bad actors, ” he said.
In 1908, Webuild addressed the concerns of building bridges on the Messina error, which triggered a deadly earthquake, and stressed that the suspension bridges were less vulnerable to seismic forces. The company said that such bridges have previously been built in seismic active areas, including Japan. Türkiye and California.
Webuild General Manager Pietro Salini said in a statement that the Bosphorus of the Messina Bridge will be a transformative for the whole country ”.
