Italy to Build World’s Longest Suspension Bridge Connecting Sicily to Mainland

Construction Set to Begin

Italy is just weeks away from proving doubters wrong as the construction begins on the world's longest suspension bridge. Connecting Sicily to the Italian mainland, there has long been skepticism as to whether the structure would ever be built. Once the $15.3-billion project is complete it will carry trains and six lanes of traffic, allowing cars to cross the Strait of Messina in 15 minutes. The choppy waters between the eastern tip of Sicily and the western edge of the region of Calabria are legendary as the place where monsters Scylla and Charybdis terrified sailors in Homer’s epic poem "The Odyssey." Today, the government says the bridge will be at the cutting edge of engineering, with the section suspended between its two pillars stretching over two miles, the longest in the world.