“The executive design is expected to take eight months, while the time needed to build the bridge will be a little more than six years.”
As soon as the contract is reinstated and updated, the project can start,” Longo told parliament. “The bridge over the Strait of Messina is a project that can break ground immediately. When Berlusconi’s government fell that year, the plans to build the bridge collapsed with his government after the next prime minister, Romano Prodi, deemed it a waste of money and a risk to the environment. In 2006, the bid to build the bridge was awarded to a consortium led by the Italian firm Salini Impregilo, now called WeBuild. Now the massive engineering project might actually be realized, thanks to a decree passed by the government of Giorgia Meloni last month after Transport Minister Matteo Salvini revived a plan last pushed forward when Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister. If built, the bridge across the Straits of Messina would span two miles (3.2 kilometers) and would be the longest suspension bridge in the world. Since then, various plans, including a short-lived idea for a tunnel, have come and gone – like water under the bridge. The dream of a bridge connecting the mainland to Sicily across the Straits of Messina goes back to Roman times, when Consul Metellus strung together barrels and wood to move 100 war elephants from Carthage to Rome in 252 BCE, according to writings by Pliny the Elder. There is a popular saying in Italian – similar to how Anglophones use “when hell freezes over” – that translates as “I’ll do it when the bridge to Messina is finished.”
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