No substitute for Messina Strait bridge
A letter from Frank Carcione, USA
Dear JUST Response and Antonio Mazzeo,
Re:
Bridge
over troubled water
Your excellent writing on the subject of the "Messina Bridge" contains many valid points of dispute. However it does not address the need for a feasible and justifiable solution for a fixed crossing over those "troubled" waters. Your ideas of upgrading many dilapidated or antiquated facilities in Sicily remain, however, constructive suggestions and merit the government attention. They are not a substitute for a bridge.
I am a retired Civil Engineer who had the great opportunity to work on a feasibility design for a suspension bridge conducted by the famous engineering firm: Steinman, Boynton, Gronquist and London in New York City. The study, encouraged by the Italian Government, was a comprehensive and serious analysis of all the problems associated with such vast undertaking. The final report submitted to the Government at that time (circa 1972) suggested that a double suspension bridge with an anchorage somewhere in the middle of the strait (at 90 meters depth) and suspended spans on either sides represented the optimum solution for feasibility and economy. The single span solution proved to be extremely difficult and too expensive to built.
Being of Sicilian descendents and raised in Italy until my 20th birthday, the realization of a suspended bridge has been my life-long dream and will remain so, I am afraid, to the end of my life. It became true only on postcards. But on my not too frequent trips to Sicily, driving by the "circonvallazione" I stop and close my to visualize a beautiful suspended bridge connecting Sicily to the mainland.
D.B. Steinman, a successful writer of poetry, besides his prowess in engineering, often addressed on the beauty of structures particularly suspension bridges. I could not phantom to drive along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn without the enchanting site of the Verazzano Bridge. I would respectfully suggest that the construction of this bridge would represent a major step forward for the Sicilian economy and greatly improve its tourist trade.
Sincerely,
Note:
This letter was published by JUST Response on January 30 2005.
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