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Sicilian Culture: News & Views

Italy Plans to Grand Span To Sicily
By Tom Hundley, Chicago Tribune

March 26, 2002 - - MESSINA, Italy -- In Greek mythology, Scylla was a six-headed monster that feasted on sailors; its partner, Charybdis, was a whirlpool that swallowed whole ships. Together, they made the Strait of Messina one of the Mediterranean's most treacherous passages.

It is not known how these two ancient ogres feel about Italy's audacious design to link them with the world's longest single-span suspension bridge, but Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who happens to be Italy's richest businessman, a man accustomed to thinking big, says the bridge between the Italian mainland and Sicily will be built.

Construction is supposed to begin in 2004, and if all goes according to plan, the new bridge's center span, 2.05 miles long, will nearly double that of the current record-holder, Japan's Akashi Kaikyo bridge, which links Kobe with Awaji Island.

"It's not a question of engineering, it's a question of political will, and we now have a prime minister who has a strong concept of doing instead of just talking," said Carlo Bucci, managing director of the public sector company that has been supervising the project since 1981.

The idea of bridging the strait has been on the drawing boards since the Punic wars when Roman generals came up with a plan for a "floating bridge" of timber. More recently, in 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi, the father of modern Italy, proposed a bridge to symbolically consolidate his unification of the nation.

In 1971, a "fixed link" between Sicily and the mainland was declared a national priority, but Italy had neither the technology nor the political will to make it happen.

Many obstacles to overcome

Whipsaw currents, earthquakes, high winds, migrating birds and the slow northward drift of Sicily--about 3 feet per century--were the main physical obstacles that had to be overcome.

The currents will be avoided by building the steel towers on dry land. New technology and materials perfected by Japanese bridge-builders will enable the span to withstand earthquakes measuring up to 7.1--similar to the quake that flattened Messina in 1908.

"If we have another earthquake like that one, the middle of bridge will be the safest place to be," said Antonio Campagno, a meteorologist with the bridge company.

High winds--up to 100 m.p.h.--posed the greatest technical challenge for the engineers. A solution was inspired by Formula One auto racing.

"We designed a new deck profile based on the airfoils on the Formula One cars. The stronger the wind, the more it pushes down on the deck and reduces oscillation," said Bucci. The bridge is designed to withstand winds up to 130 m.p.h.

The northward migration of Sicily is considered insignificant because suspension bridges have a built-in capacity to expand and contract. As for the migrating birds, they will simply have to watch where they fly.

Current plans call for the bridge to carry eight traffic lanes, four service lanes and two rail lines. It will have a capacity of about 100,000 cars and trucks and 200 trains a day. The road surface will be 230 feet above sea level--high enough for the U.S. Navy's aircraft carriers to pass beneath.

Economic benefits

The estimated cost of the project is $5 billion, half of it to be covered by Italian taxpayers and half by private investors, all of it part of Berlusconi's pledge of $110 billion to improve Italy's infrastructure and create tens of thousands of jobs over the next decade.

Messina Mayor Salvatore Leonardi already is toting up the benefits. "It will bring 8,000 jobs for us. It will transform the city--new roads, new infrastructure, new businesses," he said.

Destroyed first by the 1908 earthquake and again by Allied bombs in 1943, Messina has one of the highest unemployment rates in traditionally impoverished Sicily. Across the water, Calabria is one of the poorest regions on the Italian mainland.

Politicians and businessmen see the bridge as part of a larger project to close the gap between Italy's poor south and its prosperous north--a project into which successive governments have sunk billions to no noticeable effect.

"The bridge is not enough. If you're looking at it only in terms of Sicily and Calabria, the bridge is nothing. For this to be something more than a symbol, we have to improve the high-speed trains, the highways and infrastructure all the way up to Naples," said Nino Calarco, an Italian senator and local newspaper editor who also serves as unpaid president of the bridge company.

In addition to the anticipated economic benefits, the bridge also is expected to have a profound psychological impact on Sicily, an island known for its quirky and somewhat fatalistic temperament.

"The psychology of Sicily in its most negative aspect is characterized by the notion that things can't be changed. Sicilians think, `Things have been like this for centuries so they will continue like this centuries,'" explained Bucci, the bridge company's managing director. "But the bridge represents a real change and Sicilians will understand this."

Mafia looms over project

The fear in the minds of many is that the modern-day Scylla and Charybdis lurking in these straits are the Cosa Nostra and the 'Ndrangheta--respectively, the Sicilian and Calabrian branches of the Mafia. Both have made careers of swallowing up major state construction projects.

Calarco created a stir last year by declaring that "If the Mafia is capable of building the bridge, then they are welcome." Last week, he was more circumspect: "Do you think that when bridges and highways are built in northern Italy, there is no Mafia?" he said.

"Building the bridge is the beginning of the real struggle against the Mafia. It is the struggle against economic backwardness and isolation," he said.

Polls show that Italians, by a wide majority, think the bridge should be built. The polls also show that many have doubts that any Italian government can actually pull it off.

"When I was 8 years old my father told me, `I will never see the bridge, but you will see it for sure,'" said Pippo Saici, a Messina taxi driver. "Now I am 60 years old and I am wondering if my grandchildren will see it."

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