Since ancient times, people have actually thought about how to connect Sicily and the rest of Italy with a bridge. But even today the construction of such a bridge is not considered simple. Someone is even sure that it is impossible to do this due to the movement of the lithospheric plates. But according to the latest research, Sicily is moving towards the Apennine Peninsula at a rate of 0.5-0.8 mm per year, so it is still quite realistic to build a bridge.
At the same time, several factors need to be taken into account for the implementation of such a project. These are indicators of the average depth of the strait (at its narrowest point – 72 m, in other parts – up to 200 m), active navigation in this area, high seismic activity, strong bidirectional tidal currents, high wind speed in the strait. (up to 140 km/h) .
In 1986, Italy decided that the best option would be to build a single span suspension bridge over the strait. At the same time, the span length was to be 3300 m, the height of the pillars 399 m, but the preliminary design of such a bridge was ready only in 1992.
In 2006, the new Italian government abandoned this project. In the future, the construction of the bridge was either restarted or stopped again. It is not yet clear whether this project will be completed today. According to the European Union, this bridge is an important part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor, but at the same time, the European Union refused to allocate money for its construction in 2011. In general, there are a lot of problems with bridges in Italy now.
Source: Ferra
