Posted on 10/13/2005 2:30:20 AM PDT by aculeus
Italy has chosen a winner for the 4.4bn euro ($5.3bn; £3bn) contract to build the world's longest suspension bridge that will link Sicily to the mainland.
A group led by Italian construction firm Impregilo will start work next year and is expected to finish by 2012.
Spanning the Messina Straits, the bridge will be almost 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) long and cut the two-hour journey time by ferry and train.
The controversial project has been on the drawing board since the 1960s.
Mixed views
One of the biggest construction projects ever undertaken in Europe, the bridge has split opinion in Italy.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has trumpeted the project as a vital driver of development in the south, which will finally make Italy one nation by linking Sicily to the mainland.
The size of the project also will underline Italy's engineering prowess, polishing its somewhat tarnished image as a struggling economy and European problem area.
For critics its is nothing more than a vote-winning white elephant that will waste billions of euros, and put further strain on Italy's already over-stretched state spending.
They also point to the dangers associated with building a bridge in an area that has been hit by earthquakes.
Big plans
Whatever the outcome, there is no doubting the project's ambition.
The bridge will carry a double six-lane highway and four tracks for a high-speed railway line.
The other members of the winning group include Japan's Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries, Spain's Sacyr Vallehermoso and a number of smaller Italian companies.
Only one other group, led by Italy's Astaldi, was still in the running for the contract.
Impregilo shares were suspended following the announcement, while Astaldi's fell more than 3%. Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2005/10/12 13:33:44 GMT
© BBC MMV
Can you say juicy terrorist target?...
With the 180 million-buck wonder:
Sicily is earthquake country, being located (like all of Italy) on the active, convergent margin of Africa: hence, Etna, Vesuvius, Stromboli, and the Campi Phlegrei (a huge subsurface eruptive hazard underlying the small towns west of Naples). But then, so are Japan, Indonesia, and California, most of the Middle East, south Asia, Anatolia, Greece, Mexico and Central America, and parts of East Africa, China, Alaska, and for that matter, the middle Mississippi Valley.
Sicily certainly shouldn't be off-limits to the kind of developmental engineering and construction that has helped so many of these other regions. Old Vitruvius and Fronto would have been thrilled.
-Eric
When did they build the bridge to Sardinia?
Could anyone explain to me why the towers in #6 aren't connected..i.e. cross braced..at the top? Wouldn't that make the whole structure stronger...total non-engineer here..just seems obvious..
I never thought it would be completed. When I went to visit my folks on Jekyll this past spring, I was happy to see it completed--I always got stuck during a lift. It's a good looking bridge. From the distance, it looks like two enormous sailboats.
(Note that I'm an electrical engineer and just going on freshman/sophmore year statics and dynamics courses from long long ago)
"Could anyone explain to me why the towers in #6 aren't connected..i.e. cross braced..at the top? Wouldn't that make the whole structure stronger...total non-engineer here..just seems obvious.."
Because architecture is about art nowadays, man. You're caught in the past, while we're in the NOW! [shifts beret, turns back to Kerouac book]
8)
"Could anyone explain to me why the towers in #6 aren't connected..i.e. cross braced..at the top? Wouldn't that make the whole structure stronger...total non-engineer here..just seems obvious.."
Well, my first thought would be that they want the structure flexible, not stiff, to help fight off storms and earthquakes.
Cross-bracing at the top would make the structures "over constrained," I believe (recalling my one course in mechanical engineering). I think chaosagent got it right.
Yes.
On EVERY freaking thread that involves building something.
By all means, let's not build anything lest we make more targets. It isn't like there are that many BIG BRIDGES to hit already.
Will I be able to fish off it?
180 million?! Cheap at twice the price!
The pictures in posts 4 & 6 are cable stayed, not suspension.
See that tan, barn-like roofed structure in the background? The backhoe "compound" is to the right of it.
Seriously, I belonged to the "just tear down the old bridge and see what happens" group, but since Mrs. B goes to work over it every day, I will admit not waiting for the damned drawspan to close ( and it stuck, a lot! ) is a nice luxury.
The irony is, my late father-in-law was one of the commissioners who sited the original bridge, and if it had been located where he wanted it- about 2 miles west- it would have been out of the shipping lanes entirely, and not needed to be a drawspan or high bridge.
This is really great news for Sicily. They've always been at an economic disadvantage by not being connected to the mainland.
Isn't that strip right through there being considered for some major development? I remembr reading about some plans to put in something like 300 housing units and some shopping strips.
and if it had been located where he wanted it- about 2 miles west...
That would have been supremely ideal!
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