now thats a big bridge!!
3.6km long, 383m tall towers!!

Designers
• more than 100 internationally outstanding professionals and engineers
• 12 National and foreign Scientific and University Institutes
• 39 National and foreign Companies and Associations

Technical Project
• 3.300 metres - length of the central span
• 3.666 metres - the total length
• 60,4 metres - width of the suspended deck
• 382,60 metres - total height of the towers
• 2 pairs of suspension cables
• 5.300 metres long with a diameter of 1,24 metres - dimensions of the cables
• 44.352 wires for each cable
• 65 metres high by 600 wide - the minimum central navigable clearance

Road and rail capacity
• 6 driving lanes, 3 for each direction (1 fast, 1 normal, 1 emergency)
• 2 service lanes
• 2 rail tracks
• 6.000 vehicles/hour and 200 trains/day - the theorical traffic capacity



http://www.strettodimessina.it/img_simula/07-web.jpg

http://www.strettodimessina.it/img_simula/04-web.jpg

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/8647/messina1jl.jpg

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1690/messinsa5kd.jpg


stats-http://www.strettodimessina.it/numeripagine-e.html

Very cool

Wow what a bridge... will be an amazing engineering feat when completed.
just the towers are totally massive let alone the rest of the bridge.

Maybe they will build a bigger one between the north and south Islands of New Zealand one day... yeah right :cheers:

So is this actually going to get built?

^ think its starts 2006 with a 6 year construction program, completed-2012.

:cry: The SHB is going to lose the title of the world's widest bridge. :cry:

^ atleast it will be widest arch bridge.lol

Like i say, the EU is THE capital of bridges. This is amazing! To link Mainland Italy with Sicily WOW!

:cry: The SHB is going to lose the title of the world's widest bridge. :cry:

I somehow get the feeling it's still going to feel like the widest, though. Mainly because it's MUCH shorter.

I can't believe they're going to build this thing. When I was in Sicily in June last year they were talking about this thing everywhere you went. The bridge will do wonders but let me tell you the traghetto (ferry) ride from the mainland over to Messina is a magic 1 and a half hour experience especially when we went across on the break of dawn with the sun coming up on a hot summers day.

Of course this pales in comparison to the vision of the Gibraltar Straits bridge.