A centuries-old project to link mainland Italy to the island of Sicily took a major step forward yesterday when an international consortium won a multibillion euro contract to build a bridge connecting the two shores.
It will be the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a central span measuring 3.3 kilometres, nearly three times longer than San Francisco's Golden Gate. Its two towers will be 383 metres high - taller than the Eiffel Tower.
The Italian state-controlled company overseeing the project announced an international consortium led by Italian firm Impregilo had been awarded the lucrative contract.
Its chief executive, Pietro Ciucci, vowed the bridge would become reality despite environmental fears and the Green Party's claim the project will be "a Trojan horse for the Mafia".
"This is the latest step that reaffirms we are on the way to realise our project and in the very near future we shall see the physical start of the construction works. All scepticism will then be quashed for good," Mr Ciucci told a news conference.
Impregilo said it had put in a bid worth €3.88 billion, representing a 12 per cent discount on the €4.4 billion provisional price tag the government had pinned on the most complex engineering job in Italian history.
It beat another consortium led by Italian Astaldi.
Building is due to begin next year and is scheduled to finish in 2012, but the bridge's many critics doubt whether cash-strapped Italy will ever complete the mega-project.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi championed the bridge during his 2001 election campaign and has argued it is vital for Italy's south, which is blighted by terrible infrastructure and high unemployment. It is due to create some 40,000 jobs.
Opponents say the money would be better spent improving roads, railways, schools and hospitals in the south and the opposition centre-left has suggested it will scrap the plan if, as opinion polls suggest, it wins next year's election.
Italy's Green Party has said it will be an eyesore and will draw mobsters from all over Italy anxious for a slice of the building project. Mr Ciucci said police, magistrates and the construction teams were working together to prevent that.
The idea of linking Italy's toe to Sicily was first mooted in Roman times and the issue has since riveted political debate on both sides of the sea where Ulysses skirted the twin hazards of Charybdis on the Sicilian side and Scylla on the Calabrian.
At present, travellers have to take a ferry to cross the Messina Straits to Sicily from a site near the town of Reggio Calabria - a trip which can take two hours for train users as their carriages are laboriously shunted on and off the boats.
The 60-metre wide bridge would have 10 lanes for cars, trains and emergency vehicles, and will be able to handle 6,000 cars each hour and 200 trains a day.