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Messina Bridge

Sicily and Calabria, Italy

Year

2025-2032

Duration

Estimated 7 years

Cost

Expected €13.5 billion

Location

Italy
Project achievements

Used engineering skill

Developed a design for long bridge spans that can withstand strong winds

Connected communities

Connects the island of Sicily with the Italian mainland and beyond

Economy boosted

The connection will enable workers, tourists and goods to travel more efficiently

Connect Sicily to the Italian mainland with the longest suspension bridge in the world

The idea of building a bridge over the Messina Strait has been around for 2,000 years.

The Romans thought they could link the island of Sicily with what’s now the Calabrian region of Italy’s mainland through a series of connecting boats. But the idea was abandoned.

And such has been the history of the bridge over millennia – a stop-start tale of project plans gaining support, only to lose it shortly after.

The most common ideas on how to permanently cross the strait were suspension bridges and tunnels – either under the seabed (like the Channel Tunnel between the UK and France) or on it (like the Cross-Harbour Tunnel in Hong Kong).

The design that was eventually adopted is for a suspension bridge with a 3,300m span between two dryland towers.

If completed, it would become the longest suspension bridge in the world, surpassing Turkey’s 1915 Çanakkale Bridge’s main span of 2,023m.

In March 2023, the project gained presidential approval, with plans to start construction mid-2025.

Did you know …

  1. The studies and technical characteristics of the Messina Bridge have been referenced by other bridges of ‘great span’, such as the Yi Sun-sin Bridge in South Korea and the Oakland Bay Bridge in the US.

  2. When completed, it will claim several world records, including the longest main span and tallest towers on a suspension bridge (currently held by the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge).

  3. According to Greek mythology, there is another challenge for the bridge to overcome: the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero must navigate the narrow Messina Strait, deciding which of the terrifying creatures to confront. It now serves as a metaphor for deciding between two evils.

Why is there no bridge between Sicily and Italy?

Its complicated political history aside, the Messina Bridge’s design has had to overcome several engineering challenges.

Two of the greatest hurdles have been the strong winds and earthquakes that the region has experienced.

The bridge will be able to withstand winds with speeds of up to 216km/h, where the highest speed recorded over the last 20 years was 140km/h.

To achieve this, the deck has been designed with three wing-type box sections (the main structural beams, shaped like hollow boxes), two for the roadways and one for the railway.

These sections are cross-connected and enclosed by external wind barriers, giving the bridge an aerodynamic design.

As well as ensuring the bridge doesn't sit on active faults, the design is resilient to the effects of a 7.1-magnitude earthquake (comparable to the infamous 1908 earthquake in the strait).

Part of why the bridge will have a record-breaking long span is because the engineers decided to avoid the marine work required to build a bridge tower in the middle of the strait.

This is due to the depth of the strait, its strong tidal currents, and how much maritime traffic there is.

Difference the project could make

The bridge will have three lanes in each direction, two railway tracks and two service lanes. It will be able to transport 200 trains per day and 6,000 vehicles per hour.

It should enable 4 million vehicles to cross the strait per year, supporting the connection between Sicily and Italy’s mainland and beyond.

The bridge will be part of the Berlin-Palermo railway axis, which, as the name suggests, would connect Germany, Austria and Italy with high-speed rail. This will boost connectivity across Central Europe.

People who made it happen

  • Stretto di Messina company - responsible for the construction and management of the works (excluding the railway line)
  • Parsons Transportation Group - project management consultant
  • Eurolink - general contractor
  • COWI - designer of the crossing

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