Italy OKs $15.5B project to build suspension bridge from mainland to Sicily | Hacker News Reader

Italy OKs $15.5B project to build suspension bridge from mainland to Sicily

apnews.com

24 pointsperihelions25 comments

>Environmental groups have lodged complaints with the EU, citing concerns that the project will impact migratory birds

Seems like environmental groups oppose absolutely any infrastructure construction. It really dilutes actual concerns, because they get categorized into the “usual complaints” bucket.

> dilutes actual concerns

Lots of hammer+sickle and palestinian flags in the protests; everyone needs a hobby?

Palestine flags just replaced Che Guevara t-shirts in the pantheon of far left myths

You'd get instantly sent to HR for even remotely talking about this in NZ and Australia, yet completely normal in most of Europe.

>everyone needs a hobby?

They would need a job first. Where do these unemployed people have the money for all this action?

I still don't get why we don't investigate who is funding these groups.

Tinfoil-hat version of me believes at the core of all these protests groups and NGOs that negatively affect EU development and seek to economically, socially and politically destabilize it, lies funding from Russia, China and maybe US(AID) since they're the most likely to profit from this.

>who is funding these groups

Permanently noncontributing grand-grand-grand-grand offspring of 19th century robber barons seem to be over represented on the funding side (off the top of my head: tides foundation, woodcock foundation)

15.5 billion? Who would spend 25 billion on a bridge? Wow, amazing how they think a 35 billion bridge to Sicily would be worth it.

don't worry it will be 45 billion but we won't build it anyway. But you know, between expropriations, bribes, friends of friends, projects, etc. some money will have to be spent.

UK has already spent 1.2 billion GBP on a bridge over the Thames estuary and construction hasn't even started yet.

In New Zealand we pay this much for diesel ferries

Why wouldnt you build a tunnel, just like Sydney harbour tunnel or transbay tunnel?

Seabed is deep and problematic to build a tunnel.

It might be too short for a tunnel, the dive on the island side would be too steep for trains.

But that’s just an engineering challenge so relocating and reclaiming some land so it fits would be a better idea.

B1M covered this. The video has a fun animation of the political history too:

https://www.theb1m.com/video/italys-12bn-bridge-mystery

Loved that one. We need something like this for NZ's south and north islands and so far ships are by far the best option.

Maybe some semi submersible, low-safety tube for cargo could make sense tho, but I'm not holding my breath.

New government cancelled $1.45b ferry replacement project for cost blowout and everyone expects it to cost even more.

I saw a video about how crazy of an engineering challenge this will be. I guess the pricetag is evidence of that. I hope it pays off for them.

It won't pay off. It is a gift to mafia.

WeBuilt, the general contractor, is one of the biggest building companies in the world. They even built a part of Panama Channel expansion. Why do you think that they are mafiosi? Personally I don't know if this bridge would be useful or not, but I think that refuse to building it just because mafia risk it's a stupid reason. Italy has a strong law and control system to prevent that and I remembered exactly the same argument about Bologna-Firenze high speed train tunnel and highways that after almost 20 years are successful infrastructures.

The problem is not WeBuilt, issues usually arise with subcontracting.

Calabria is home of Ndrangheta https://www.interpol.int/en/Crimes/Organized-crime/Projects/...

Ndrangheta is a huge criminal organization with ties to politics and a lot of economic power and it is based in Calabria.

The current government actively proposed special antimafia rules for checking contractors and subcontractors for the bridge which, IMHO, reinforce the idea that it is a gift to mafia. Luckily the proposal was rejected by the president https://en.ilsole24ore.com/art/strait-bridge-no-derogation-a...

We already had issues with ndrangheta and infrastructures for example https://transparency.eu/the-eternally-unfinished-highway/ or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gioia_Tauro

All of this only on one side of the bridge, on the other you have Sicily.

I think that there are reasonable doubts about mafia interference with the construction of the bridge.

Also this is relevant to understand the situation in Calabria if you can read Italian or maybe with some translation tool https://www.ilpost.it/2025/06/27/commissariamenti-calabria/

Then we should not do anything in Calabria and Sicilia for the fear of the criminal organisations?

There are many suspects that criminal organisations are involved in the actual ferry management:

https://lespresso.it/c/attualita/2021/2/23/cosi-la-mafia-con...

Whit your mindset we need to stop them as well

Never thought about it, but Sicily is actually surprisingly close to Italy. There is probably worse ways to use money around.

Why are they spending 16bn dollars on transit infrastructure for a population that won't exist in 2 generations?

Italy has one of the lowest TFRs in Europe. They should be spending infinites amount of money fixing that instead of bridges to graveyards.

CFR is usually higher than TFR

Hope it includes rail/train like Öresund-bridge.

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