Legal battle looms over Italy plan to build world’s longest suspension bridge
Italy this week approved a US$15.8 billion bridge linking Sicily to the mainland, amid concerns over its scale, seismic risks and environmental impact
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government gave its final approval for the bridge over the Strait of Messina on Wednesday, earmarking €13.5 billion (US$15.8 billion) for a project that has been under discussion for more than 50 years.
The Strait of Messina Bridge would measure nearly 3.7km (2.2 miles), with the suspended span reaching 3.3km, surpassing Turkey’s Canakkale Bridge, currently the longest, by 1,277 metres.
With three car lanes in each direction flanked by a double-track railway, the bridge would have the capacity to carry 6,000 cars an hour and 200 trains a day - reducing the time to cross the strait by ferry from up to 100 minutes to 10 minutes by car.
“They could offer me three times the value of my house, but that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is the landscape. They must not touch the Strait of Messina,” said Mariolina De Francesco, a 75-year-old living in the Sicilian city of Messina.
More than 440 properties will have to be expropriated on the Sicilian side and in the Calabria region on the mainland to make way for the bridge and connecting roads and railways.