Italian government officials are reviewing final designs for an estimated $11.7-billion suspension bridge that, with a 3,330-meter-long main span, would break the current world-record length by 66%. Construction of the Messina Strait road-and-rail crossing between the mainland and Sicily could start next year, the owner's director general said at a London conference last month.

“最终的设计已得到充分确认……没有[技术]不确定性，”罗马的Stretto di Messina S.P.A.的所有者总干事Giuseppe Fiammenghi在工程研讨会上讲话。但是他警告说，财务上的不确定性和意大利的经济状况可能会延迟该项目。

Government-owned Stretto di Messina has a concession to procure the crossing and then operate it for 30 years. In 2005, it awarded a turnkey contract to the Eurolink consortium led by Milan-based Impregilo S.p.A. Eurolink includes Japan's Ishigawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., Tokyo, and Denmark's Cowi A/S, Lyngby, as its lead design firm.

2006年，一个新政府取消了由即将卸任的总理席尔维奥·贝卢斯科尼（Silvio Berlusconi）提出的计划。随着贝卢斯科尼（Berlusconi）在2008年重返权力，该项目重新开始。

The main-span length will surpass that of the current record-holder's, Japan's Akashi Kaikyo bridge, by 1,309 m. The 52-m-wide deck will include two 14-m-wide box girders for roadways and a 7.5-m-wide central railroad girder. The three decks will be linked at 30-m intervals with 4.5-m-deep, 3.75-m-wide cross box girders. The deck structure will be supported at 30-m intervals at its outer edges by hangers from pre-formed parallel wire-strand suspension cables. Rising about 380 m above concrete bases, two steel towers will have parallel legs linked with cross girders at their tops.

The bridge is designed to incur only minor damage during a seismic event with a 2,000-year return period, says Chris Scollard, project manager with Buckland & Taylor, a Cowi subsidiary. The deck includes hydraulic dampers to absorb seismic shocks. Coarse, granular soil up to 40 m beneath the piers will be jet-grouted to avoid liquefaction, adds Luigi Callisto, an associate professor at Rome University.

今年夏天，斯特雷托·迪·墨西拿（Stretto di Messina）与项目经理帕森斯公司（Parsons Corp.）批准了欧洲链接的设计，该设计现已在该州的经济规划部门间委员会审查中进行了审查。在最佳情况下，可以在明年夏天开始工作，该项目可能会在2019年开放。

Serious planning for the crossing began in 1969, says Fabio Brancaleoni, a civil engineering professor at Rome University and a Eurolink consultant. By 1986, tunnel options were eliminated. Deep water and difficult geology ruled out both a multispan, multipier option and a two-span option.

单跨选项保留。在1990年代，已故的英国工程师威廉·布朗（William Brown）提议通过在其顶部和底部表面均衡气压来减少风引起的甲板扭曲。通过将两条道路和铁路分离到与交叉梁相关的单个甲板上，可以实现这种稳定。