A long-delayed and controversial project to build a bridge across the Messina Straits to connect Sicily to mainland Italy will initiate in two years' time, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini said Thursday after recently reviving the scheme long pushed by his ally, former premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Environmentalists and analysts have said the bridge is impractical and dangerous, given the seismic nature of the proposed building sites in Calabria and Sicily.
Other are opposed to its huge potential cost.
Salvini is now seeking funding from the EU to realise the project, and he is reviving the Messina Strait Company that was set up to oversee the scheme.
He said it would take over five years for the bridge to be completed.
The planned 8.5-billion-euro suspension bridge, one of the world's longest, was the brainchild of ex-premier Berlusconi when he was in power from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011, especially during the latter stages of his administration.
Supporters hail the bridge as a huge job-creation scheme that would give Italy's image a major boost, while bringing Sicily closer to the mainland in physical, psychological and social terms.
But it has been opposed by environmentalists and dogged by concerns over its safety and fears of potential Mafia involvement.
The 3,690-metre-long bridge has been designed to be able to handle 4,500 cars an hour and 200 trains a day and would replace slow ferry services between the island and the mainland.
