A view of Calabria across the Strait of Messina (Giorgio Cosulich/Getty Images)
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There has been talk of building a bridge to link Sicily to the Italian mainland for so many decades that the project has become a synonym for a pipe dream and a source of infinite satire. “There will be a bridge over the straits,” says one character dreamily in the comedy series Boris. “Yes, it will resolve all our problems,” his girlfriend replies, “it will defeat the mafias.”
Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies pondered the idea of a bridge as long ago as 1840. More recently, Silvio Berlusconi emerged as its greatest champion. His building plans were twice thwarted by political rivals who deemed it an absurd vanity project — but his vision still inspires devotion in Italian politics today. The Strait of Messina Bridge has come to symbolise a powerful and modern Italy. In a country fretting that its days of breath-taking building are over, the bridge is seen as sign that contemporary leaders can match not just the grandeur of ancient Roman viaducts and Renaissance churches, but also Mussolini’s creation of entirely new suburbs (a project later adopted by Berlusconi).
The politics of the bridge are intriguing: Giorgia Meloni’s government has recently augmented fiscal autonomy for the regions, which will almost certainly benefit the north more than the south. The bridge promises the opposite: it’s a nationalist symbol uniting the country and showing the south that Rome cares. The EU likes the idea because it would complete its Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor. The transport minister and leader of the Right-wing Lega party, Matteo Salvini, has also gone all-in. In five years, as Meloni’s star has risen, Salvini’s popularity has crashed. And so despite opposing the bridge until 2016, he has now bet the entirety of his dwindling political capital on its completion.
“This project is very elevated in the public imagination,” says Guido Signorino of the Invece del Ponte group. “It’s like the pyramids, and Salvini wants to enter the history books as the visionary who made it happen.” The man who has journeyed from communist to neo-fascist, from secessionist to nationalist, now appears to see himself as Italy’s Pharaoh.
Architects envision a bridge 3.6 kilometres long, bookended by two main towers higher than the Eiffel Tower. With three vehicle lanes in each direction plus train tracks down the middle, 6,000 vehicles could pass over per hour and 200 trains per day. This won’t, of course, come cheap. According to the Italian Treasury, €1.2 billion has been spent on feasibility studies since 1965. The estimated cost of building the bridge has increased exponentially: in 2006 it was calculated to cost €3.9 billion; by 2011 that figure had rocketed to €8.5 billion. Now it stands at €13.5 billion.
Will it be worth it? Salvini has claimed that the project will create 120,000 jobs, but this figure has come under scrutiny. The company responsible for the project suggests that the real figure is more likely to be between 4,300 and 7,000, while one association opposing the bridge thinks that only 2,230 jobs will be created.
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SubscribeThis sounds like Italy’s version of HS2. A bridge stretching half-way across the Strait of Messina would be so symbolic…
….or a bridge with only one lane that runs in only one direction.
““There will be a bridge over the straits,” says one character dreamily in the comedy series Boris.”
Scanning this, I thought for a moment this referred to Boris Johnson. A man with form on not building bridges (London, Irish Sea). Or airports (Heathrow third runway, Boris Island).
He might be the perfect man for the job here. Even speaks an Italian dialect. He’s available too.
Dammi un break…
x
I really wish people would learn what “exponentially” means.
Yeah, that and “decimate”.
Maybe the ‘good’ Sicilians will blow it up anyway.
As the Lega swept Sicily a few years ago, maybe not.
Poor Boris. His idea of an airport in the Thames Estuary was as possible as the airports in Genoa and Palermo. The garden bridge plan was malevolently destroyed by the usual suspects. A bridge over the Irish sea? Evidently impossibe, besides, who wants it. Britain has long been incapable of any daring infrastructure project. Btw Salvini resigned from the Five Star government in protest because they refused to agree the new tunnel under the Alps, although the EU was paying half the price. Not an impossible idea, except for the Greens.
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