The Strait of Messina bridge? "A failure foretold."

A strategic project for all of Italy, a key infrastructure for the development of Southern Italy, which will make the country more connected and cohesive: these are the words of Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini, announcing the approval of the final design for the Strait of Messina Bridge by the Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning and Sustainable Development (CIPESS). The debate has heated up again, jolting those who have always tried to make it clear that the bridge will not be the solution to Southern Italy's problems, as some would have us believe.

For Gaetano Giunta , president of the Messina Foundation , this is a project that, "from whatever perspective you look at it," is a failure. "If I say the Bridge is nonsense , " Giunta states, "I fear no contradiction. From an economic standpoint, it's a foregone conclusion because the hypotheses underlying the project are implausible. More specifically, the GDP of Sicily and Calabria is expected to grow over the next 15 years—between 4 and 5% in the pessimistic scenario and 10% in the optimistic scenario. Since the project is 15 years old, we know full well that in this period, our country has actually been in recession and the GDP of these regions has actually declined. After all, not even China is projecting growth rates of this kind again. The underlying idea is that, with this geometric growth in GDP, the need for trade in goods will increase: the economic necessity of the Bridge would be justified as such. That's why I say it's nonsense.

The bridge idea, Giunta continues, "is also qualitatively flawed, because even if there were significant GDP growth, it's not true that this would proportionally increase the need for goods and passengers to cross the Strait. Goods and passengers are crossing the Strait of Messina less and less frequently, as the country has now become a multi-nodal hub. Increasingly, ships from Palermo are using the Tyrrhenian routes, and from Catania the Ionian-Adriatic ones, just as passengers are increasingly using planes from Sicily."

The second element to consider is the environmental impact assessment: the one conducted is absolutely inadequate. "The Strait of Messina is a chaotic cusp, because it is a very unique place, with a powerful ecosystem, yet at the same time extremely delicate and central to the life of the Mediterranean. Let me give just one example. Nutrients from Naples to Malta arrive through the Strait due to phenomena linked to the dynamics of the tides and currents. In this area, there are ascending currents from the depths to the surface, which then, due to the differences in temperature and salinity of the seas, develop significant horizontal currents that spread these nutrients across a very significant portion of the Mediterranean. We are at the main migration hub. All of these phenomena are completely underestimated. It must also be said that the economic impact on our city would certainly be negative: Messina would be completely bypassed by the Bridge, so far from the rhetoric that claims the Bridge creates the metropolitan area."

It seems paradoxical, but for the government, it's a significant issue. "It currently takes 15 minutes to get from Messina to Reggio Calabria; once the bridge is built, it will take about an hour. This is because the connections are so far away. Furthermore, the health impact is greatly underestimated."

Giunta chaired the commission that assessed the environmental and social impact of the bridge for the Municipality of Messina: "Ours was the only negative opinion, courageously but truthfully. At the time, it managed to block Silvio Berlusconi. I can't recite from memory the exact number of cubic meters of earth that will cross the city, but it must be said that it's not true that the construction work will only affect the very tip of Sicily, namely the Capo Peloro area. The bridge construction will impact the entire city of Messina, from south to north, including the Peloritani mountains and the surrounding areas of the metropolitan area. Not to mention the passage of trucks that, for at least ten years, will crisscross the entire city of Messina, not only generating the pollution typical of heavy vehicles, but also all the dust that will be raised by the excavations.

There is also considerable uncertainty about the technical feasibility of the bridge in such a geodynamic area as the Strait of Messina. "Doubts about its technical feasibility are extremely high. When we switched from iron and concrete to new materials, these justified, for example, the leap in height of skyscrapers. Compared to the Messina Strait Bridge, there is a leap in length that could only be justified by a paradigm shift in engineering, which however does not exist. Furthermore, the bridge, in the rhetoric of the designers, would connect Sicily to Italy, both by road and rail, but one of the major problems when building long-span bridges is that they are like a taut rope, so you have to be careful that the vibrations that lift them when crossing don't resonate with their own motion. The great risk is explosion." A bridge that is both a road and rail bridge is technically very difficult to build, "so much so that the longest existing bridge in the world, in Japan, was originally designed as a road and rail bridge, but then they abandoned the idea of having a double crossing because an engineering solution to the stresses and technical risks of dissonance could not be found," recalls Giunta.

While newspapers are presenting the project as something that should begin soon, Giunta emphasizes that "the project being discussed isn't yet operational; we're only at the intermediate planning stage. The decree stipulates that work can begin in segments, without necessarily having all the parts fully operational. On paper, therefore, they could start digging holes and roads all over the city, without ever being able to fully complete the project. Let's also consider the fact that a project of this scale can only be managed by highly specialized companies, which will not involve local workers in any way: it requires acrobatic teams to work the steel, which won't be available not only in Messina but perhaps even in Italy."

Several associations have already called for demonstrations, for example, one is scheduled for Saturday, August 9th, in Piazza Cairoli: "It's important to be present in the streets, and we will be there, but I believe there are phases and phases in the struggles that citizens must wage. It seems to me that this is not the stage for protests, but rather for a necessary legal investigation. We need to study the documents carefully and understand how to stop the procedures. This is the time for technical expertise. This process cannot be stopped by street protests," Giunta concludes.

Pictured is Minister Matteo Salvini with a model of the Strait of Messina Bridge. Photo by Stefano Carofei/Sintesi

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