In ancient times the architectural giants were celebrated as the wonders of the world. Today, in the era of large infrastructures, the bridge over the Strait of Messina aspires to enter that same symbolic category. The current government presents the work as an infrastructure intended to enter history for its record dimensions and for potential impacts on economy and national mobility.
But the grandeur of the project goes hand in hand with its ability to break territories, citizens and scientific communities. On the one hand there are those who glimpse an unrepeatable opportunity for growth in the bridge, capable of attracting investments and redesigning transport routes in the Mediterranean.
On the other hand, fears related to costs, environmental risks, technical difficulties and a management perceived as little transparent, with the risk of mafia infiltrations emerge.
At the figures on the tolls are added the disputes of the local communities, the doubts of economists and academics, and even the criticisms that came from the international press, such as the investigation of Financial Times.
The proportions and record numbers of the bridge over the Strait
The odyssey spoke of two marine monsters, Scilla and Cariddi. Today, in their place, the project of the bridge over the narrow imagines a suspended giant who climbs them over:
- 3,300 meters of central span;
- 3,666 meters overall;
- 399 meters high towers;
- A declared capacity of 6,000 vehicles per hour and 200 trains per day.
Tplan Consulting’s study estimates an increase in traffic by 1% per year until 2062, over 30% overall. But the Department for Economic Planning recalls that, with the southern population down 32% by 2070, similar forecasts appear optimistic.
Tplan replies that growth will depend more on tourism and national connections than on demography and local GDP. The Ministry of Infrastructure makes the thesis its own. But will it really be a strategic investment or is there the risk of a cathedral in the desert?
There is also another problem, the unknown of the cost of the toll: if on the one hand the government promises a maximum cost of 10 euros, analysts provide prices up to 60 times more expensive than the cost of the highway.
How much the realization will cost
It will take about 7 years to complete the bridge, exactly the time the ancient Greeks have used to build the base and columns of the Parthenon of Athens. The expected cost touches 13.5 billion euros.
10.5 will go to Webuild, divided between over 9 billion for the works and about 1.2 for technical expenses, safety and territorial compensation measures. Other 1.9 billion will end up under the direct management of the client, that is, the Strait public company of Messina Spa, intended for checks, reclamation, supervisory and archaeological investigations. According to Open Economics, the impact on the national economy could generate over 23 billion euros of added value.
The front of the no between expropriations and the environment
Alongside economic and engineering data, the opposition of local communities grows. In Torre Faro, many residents fear of losing their homes for expropriations. “I made sacrifices to buy it, if they destroy it, they also destroy me,” reports the Financial Times who interviewed the people of the place. The problem of expropriations is not insignificant, for the construction of the bridge about 4000 people will be forced to abandon their homes forever.
The inhabitants cite the environmental and seismic risks of the Strait, recalling the earthquake of 1908. WWF, Legambiente and Greenpeace brought the matter to Brussels, denouncing violations of European directives on biodiversity and avian migration.
Also at Villa San Giovanni the mayor Giusy Caminiti denounces the risk of a divided and paralyzed city, while the drop in ferries flows in the last twenty years feeds doubts about the utility of the bridge itself.
The fear of mafia infiltrations
For many, the bridge over the narrow risks resembling a modern Trojan horse: presented as a symbol of progress, but capable of opening the doors to opaque interests.
It is not a recent fear: already in 1998 the Dia reported the attention of ‘Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra, and in 2005 the anti -mafia warned Parliament on the concrete dangers of infiltrations in contracts. In the following years several reports have confirmed that large works represent one of the main occasions of penetration for the gangs, attracted by the flows of public money and the subcontracting network.
Today the building sector remains among the most exposed. In fact, he writes Reutersthat Italian construction in 2024 concentrated 38% of the preventive anti -mafia shares, and the subcontracts represent the most vulnerable passage. According to the Dia, only in the last year over 5,000 disqualification have affected companies suspected of bonds with organized crime, almost four out of ten related to buildings.
The expropriations also add tension: between Messina and Villa San Giovanni there are about 448 properties involved, with over 400 interested families.
The government and the anti -mafia control task force
The government has announced a control Task Force, but in any case, without due transparency, a billion euro infrastructure risks transforming itself into a multiplier of hidden costs and a gift to the mafias rather than citizens and territories.
And in any case, this does not seem to worry about Minister Salvini. In defending the work, the Minister of Infrastructure has liquidated the concerns on mafia infiltrations saying:
If you should not do the bridge because there are mafia and ‘ndrangheta then we don’t do anything anymore.
A joke that seems to ignore decades of institutional alarms, as if organized crime was a folkloric detail from American trilogy with horse heads on the bed. On the topic of controls, the clash with the Quirinale has already forced to change the special rules that risked being less stringent than ordinary ones.
The fact remains that in the face of billions of public money, the government offers surveillance protocols borrowed from Expo and Olympics. And so, in the end we have a bridge on site that runs the risk of becoming a monument to rhetoric, even before infrastructure.
