Critics fear funds for the Messina bridge will simply be diverted to the mafia
The bridge will span a busy shipping lane and will have to withstand high winds
Posted on 07/05/2011 8:15:12 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Italy's government has revived plans to build a controversial bridge linking the island of Sicily to the mainland. The Messina bridge, whose centre span of 3.3km (two miles) would make it the longest in the world, has been a pet project of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. His 2001-2006 government backed it, before the succeeding administration scrapped it. It is part of a massive 17.8bn-euro (£15.9bn) public works programme to create new jobs and boost the economy. The programme was announced on Friday after being approved by the cabinet and various government departments. Funding for the programme is a mix of public and private resources... Besides the bridge, it includes new urban rail networks, motorway expansion, prison and school construction, and a flood barrier system in Venice... Work on the construction of the road and rail bridge linking Calabria and Sicily over the Straits of Messina is now due to begin later this year... The bridge will span a busy shipping lane and will have to withstand high winds... The government pledged 1.3bn euros towards the bridge as a contribution to its estimated cost of some 6.1 billion euros.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Critics fear funds for the Messina bridge will simply be diverted to the mafia
The bridge will span a busy shipping lane and will have to withstand high winds
Italy to build two mile bridge to SicilyMr Berlusconi -- widely criticised for his failure to revive the Italian economy when last in power from 2001 to 2006 -- has moved fast on several fronts since he was sworn in two weeks ago. This week he issued a draconian decree to deal with street crime, illegal immigration and the Naples rubbish crisis, and vowed to overturn a 20-year moratorium and reintroduce nuclear power plants in Italy.
Richard Owen in Italy
May 23, 2008
Sunday Times
The Messina Straits plan envisages a suspension bridge with six traffic lanes and two railway lines, with a span of 3,300 metres, longer than the 1,991-metre Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan, supported by steel cables. The towers at either end would be 382 metres high.
The bridge is intended to link Reggio Calabria on the mainland to Messina, a stretch of water of 16 kilometres (10 miles) at its widest point and connected only by ferries since ancient times, when its treacherous eddies and whirlpools gave rise to the myth of the monsters Scylla and Charybdis described in Homer's Odyssey.
Construction of a controversial suspension bridge connecting the Mediterranean island of Sicily to the Italian mainland will begin in three years' time and should be completed by 2010... If it is ever built, the bridge will be one of the biggest and most costly public-works projects ever undertaken in Italy. The latest estimate is $4.5 billion, but interest payments could drive this figure up considerably. The government plans to get private investment to cover more than half the total cost in exchange for toll fees... The bridge will be five kilometres long and its central span -- supported by four steel cables each nearly a metre-and-a-half in diameter -- will measure over three kilometres. It will rise 64m above sea level and will contain a double six-lane highway and four tracks for a new high-speed railway line planned to link the Sicilian capital, Palermo, with the rest of Italy... Italy's Green Party said it was ridiculous to spend such astronomic sums on the bridge when many Sicilians remained without a proper water supply and the island's roads are badly in need of modernisation.
Not to mention volcanoes, earthquakes, and Libyans.
This reminds me of when, back in the 70s, Gov Gilligan of Ohio wanted to build a bridge across Lake Erie to Canada. Just not a good idea.
Heh... it’s a stimulus plan I guess. ;’) Seriously, this is an infrastructure buildout that Sicilians should worry about, it’ll bring in a lot of crime from mainland Italy.
During the Punic Wars, specifically, during that 16 years Hannibal spent terrorizing Italy, one of the methods the Romans used to keep him from marching south toward possible reinforcement by sea and reconquest of Sicily, was a scorched-Earth policy, so his army wouldn’t be able to make it. It’s scenic country, but very hard (as the Allies noticed as they fought their way north in WWII).
Anyway, I read somewhere that the Romans never got around to fixing what they broke, probably because the three dozen “noble” families A) didn’t own it and B) didn’t want the competition.
...but other than those four things...
Another site I found (it’s LaRouchian) stated that plans and studies were underway to build a subterranean undersea railway line (like the Chunnel) to link mainland Italy with Sicily, Malta I think, and Tunisia.
Governor Gilligan... heh... Ohio should have a policy of making all governors change their names (if necesary) to one of the characters (regular or guest) from Gilligan’s Island.
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