Italians Debate Planned Bridge Over Troubled Waters

Since the times of their grandfathers’ grandfathers, the people here on the tip of Sicily have entertained mankind’s desire to tame the Strait of Messina.

The treacherous waterway that separates this island from Italy’s boot toe daunted Ulysses and Hannibal. Mythical monsters menaced its shores, and invading armadas braved the crossing at great peril.

Now, Silvio Berlusconi is taking his turn.

The billionaire prime minister wants to build the world’s longest suspension bridge across the strait, the most ambitious component of an enormous, and lucrative, public works project aimed at modernizing his country’s infrastructure while winning votes.

After more than three decades of debate, plans have been drawn, contractors are bidding and construction is scheduled to begin at the end of next year. The $7.5-billion project is to be completed in 2012, if all goes to form.

Spanning 2.06 miles, the bridge would for the first time link Sicily to the mainland -- a connection Berlusconi and supporters say would finally take the picturesque but tradition-bound island “into the heart of Europe.”

The project is fraught with risks: The area is seismic, the price tag is huge, the possibility of Mafia infiltration is ever-present. But proponents say the bridge is the key to economic and social revival of impoverished southern Italy.

In seaside villages such as Torre Faro on the Sicilian shore, and Villa San Giovanni on the mainland, opposition to the bridge runs deep. Deeper still is skepticism that the bridge would be completed.

The arguments sound familiar to anyone well versed in the controversies of coastal development.

Opponents say the bridge would ruin habitats of sea creatures and plants, displace hundreds of people, throw others out of work and destroy a cherished, laid-back way of life. They argue the bridge is unnecessary -- people can cross the strait on ferries -- and an expensive boondoggle when southern Italy has greater needs, such as good roads.

“They want to ruin the most beautiful part of Sicily,” Nicola Mancuso, 47, said as he plucked mussels from one of the deep freshwater lagoons that dot the island’s northeast corner.

The mistrust that courses through southern Italy, especially its islands, makes it difficult for people here to believe they stand to benefit. Sicilians feel isolated and largely abandoned by any central Italian government; geographically, Sicily is closer to Tunisia than to Rome.

They’ve seen too many projects start only to be abandoned, in part because of Mafia corruption. Mobbed-up companies get contracts, pour the concrete, take the money and run.

Such problems aside, there certainly is raw beauty here. Large, slow ferries and graceful sailboats crisscross the choppy waters of the strait -- where the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas meet -- much as they have for generations. Fishing boats with spotters high in the masts are on the lookout for swordfish, the local staple; the shiny spear-like creatures, longer than a man is tall, are hauled in, carved up and sold right at the water’s edge.

Residents who oppose the bridge and the disruption they believe it would bring envision their idyllic corner converted into a huge, dust-choked construction pit. They fear being reduced to living in ghettoes in the shadow of a mighty steel bridge, like the underpass-dwelling homeless they see on American TV programs.

Father Mario Aiello, the parish priest here in Torre Faro, says politicians on both the left and right have been promising to build a bridge over the Strait of Messina for as long as anyone can remember.

“We are sure it will never be built,” Aiello, 59, said in a small office at his 200-year-old church. “But our fear is they will begin, dig the construction sites, destroy the houses, then never finish. Only the ruins will remain, and we’ll end up like Troy.”

Andrea Risitano, a banker who until recently served as an elected official in a post roughly equivalent to county supervisor, joined the conversation and said he agreed with the priest.

“As children we always heard: ‘The bridge! The bridge!’ -- it was like a dream. Now we are becoming aware of the nightmare,” said Risitano, 54. “They’ll open the sites for 10 years, and the Mafia will eat the money.”

Sebastian Deodado, a mortuary driver, was more hopeful. Making it easier to cross to “the continent” could open up new worlds, he said.

“And more tourists will come to see this famous bridge that everyone is talking about,” said Deodado, 24, who makes it across the water only once or twice a year.

To make way for the powerful pylons that would support the bridge, about 800 homes would be destroyed in villages on both sides of the strait and several hundred families displaced. Support cables would stretch above Torre Faro’s cemetery and an access ramp would nip at its edge. At least 1,200 ferryboat pilots would lose their jobs.

But the company in charge of designing the bridge, Stretto di Messina, says that it would keep the disruption to a minimum, and that the fresh investment, new employment and boost to the economy would more than compensate for any sacrifice by residents.

Pietro Ciucci, chief executive of the company, said he was confident the bridge would be built according to schedule, and not become a white elephant like so many projects in Sicily and the south. He said the company was committed to “full transparency” and had worked from the beginning with law enforcement officials to prevent Mafia infiltration.

“We know about the local feelings, that there are fears about the impact of the construction sites, the roads and the traffic,” Ciucci said at the corporation’s sleek headquarters in Rome. “I understand their fears, but it is based on wrong information, on the negative experiences of the past. We must change that past.”

Every year, millions of cars, trucks and people take ferries across the strait between Calabria and Sicily, the waters churning with strong currents, whirlpools and blustery winds. The trip is normally about 20 minutes and can be quite pleasant, but during the busiest times, the wait can grow to an hour or more. Trains have to be dismantled, loaded onto the boats and reassembled on the other side, a process that takes 2 1/2 hours and makes the journey impossible for high-speed trains.

Proponents of the bridge say it would drastically reduce travel time. A motorist would zip across in three minutes, the company literature says (officials acknowledge that’s a bit of an exaggeration); the bridge would have “theoretical capacity” of 6,000 vehicles an hour and 200 trains a day, thanks to six traffic lanes and two rail tracks.

Its central span would stretch nearly 11,000 feet. Currently, the longest suspension bridge is the Akashi Kaikyo, which opened in Japan in 1998 and has a central span of more than 6,500 feet.

Two steel towers the height of the Empire State Building and weighing 56,000 tons each would anchor the structure at each end, planted near Villa San Giovanni in Calabria and Torre Faro in Sicily, just north of the area’s main city, Messina.

The bridge’s designers say it could withstand a magnitude 7.1 earthquake and, because of its “wing profile,” winds exceeding 120 mph.

If true, that would be a good thing. The city of Messina was flattened and 80,000 people killed on both sides of the strait in a 1908 quake.

Ferdinando Giovine, a geologist and marine biologist who stands to lose his house in Villa San Giovanni, remains unconvinced by Stretto di Messina’s seismological studies. The entire region, he notes, is a hotbed of seismic rumbling, and the Mt. Etna volcano is not far away. This coast and its breakaway islands were, in fact, formed by the gnashing of tectonic plates millenniums ago.

“Look at the stress lines,” he said, pointing to the jagged hillside. “Just like California.”

There’s another California allusion Ciucci and other company officials like to make: the Golden Gate Bridge, a once-controversial structure that became a beloved symbol of a great city.

But, the Golden Gate to Sicily? Some Italians suggest the bridge is nothing but a flamboyant project for a flamboyant prime minister. To be sure, Berlusconi has slipped in the polls and faces political battles on a number of fronts. Big infrastructure is often a big vote-getter, and Berlusconi often campaigns on claims that his public works projects have brought huge improvements to the country.

Government and company officials dismiss the criticism, but more than a few Italians are wondering how their debt-ridden country is supposed to pay for the high-tech link.

Financing would be a combination of public and private money, and loans and subsidies from the European Union, which, after initial resistance, placed the bridge on a list of “priority projects” aimed at improving transit across the continent.

Company officials say tolls would eventually cover the costs and repay the loans.

“Some people say the strait is romantic, but ask a truck driver [waiting for a ferry] how romantic that is,” Ciucci said. “The strait is an obstacle. To be closed on an island is a limitation.

“The bridge will have an unbelievable impact on the day-by-day life of the citizens. It will be a landmark of trans-European infrastructure. It won’t be a cathedral in the desert.”

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Quite a reach

A suspension bridge across the Messina Strait would be the world’s longest such span.

Longest suspension bridges:

Bridge/location Length*

1. Akashi Kaikyo Bridge/Japan 6,570 2. Izmit Bay Bridge/Turkey 5,538 3. Great Belt East Bridge/Denmark 5,328 4. Humber Bridge/Britain 4,626 5. Jiangyin Yangtze River Bridge/China 4,544

*In feet between supports; Izmit Bay is under construction. Source: The World Almanac 2004