Incredible £11bn mega-project for world’s longest suspension bridge | World | News
The bridge will link mainland Italy with Sicily (Image: Webuild)
An £11billion mega-project linking mainland Italy with Sicily is finally moving forward after decades of debate. The long-planned bridge across the Strait of Messina has received final government approvals, with preliminary works beginning in 2026. If completed, it will become the longest suspension bridge in the world.
The Strait of Messina Bridge will stretch around 3,666 metres (about 2.2 miles) from end to end, with a main suspended span of 3,300 metres (around two miles). That would make it far longer than the current record-holder, Turkey’s 1915 Çanakkale Bridge, which has a main span of 2,023 metres.
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The project, expected to cost between €13.5billion and €16billion (around £11bn to £13bn), has been described by Italy’s Transport Minister Matteo Salvini as “the biggest infrastructure project in the West”.
The suspended deck will hang from cables stretching between two towers standing 399 metres (1,309ft) tall, which is higher than the Eiffel Tower.
Unlike most record-breaking suspension bridges, the Messina crossing is designed to be “multimodal”.
Plans include six lanes of road traffic, two railway tracks, emergency lanes, service lanes and pedestrian walkways. It is expected to handle up to 6,000 vehicles per hour and around 200 trains per day.
The bridge will sit 72 metres above sea level, allowing large cruise ships and cargo vessels to pass underneath.
The Strait of Messina Bridge will stretch around 3,666 metres (Image: Webuild)
Construction will be led by a consortium known as Eurolink, headed by Italian engineering giant Webuild.
The design includes four main suspension cables, each about 1.26 metres thick and made up of more than 44,000 individual steel wires.
Pietro Salini, chief executive of Webuild, said the bridge would be “transformative for the whole country”.
He added that the “great infrastructure project” will spread across multiple sites to “stimulate growth, employment, and lawfulness across southern Italy. The project will be fitted with the most advanced technologies for safety and maintenance.”
The Italian government has also described it as “a strategic piece of infrastructure for the development of both the Mezzogiorno and the entire nation, as well as being of pre-eminent national importance for the completion of trans-European transport networks”.
The Strait of Messina lies in a highly active seismic zone (Image: Getty)
However, the project faces serious challenges. The Strait of Messina lies in a highly active seismic zone and was the site of a devastating earthquake in 1908.
A 2023 study in the journal Basin Research warned that “active fault interactions and strain transfer need to be included in seismic risk analysis”.
Study co-author Rebecca Dorsey said: “This is a shifting, dynamic landscape, and the stakes are high.”
Environmental concerns have also been raised, as the strait is an important migration route for birds and marine life.
There have also been long-standing fears over cost overruns and potential organised crime involvement, though the government says strict legality protocols are in place.
If construction stays on schedule, the bridge is expected to open to traffic in 2032 or 2033.
