After centuries of “What if?” and “Maybe next year,” the Italian government has signed off on the Ponte Stretto di Messina, a record-breaking suspension bridge that’ll span the Strait of Messina to connect Sicily to the Italian mainland.

The numbers for this project are bonkers, staggering in their enormity. The bridge’s full length will hit 2.24 miles (3.6 kilometers), making it the longest suspension bridge in the world should it be realized. The towers connecting it all will stand 1,309 feet (399 meters).

Its completion date is optimistically set at 2032. The bridge will shuttle around 6000 vehicles per hour and 200 trains per day across its 60-meter-wide deck. It’ll carry three lanes of road traffic in each direction, along with two emergency lanes and a pair of railway tracks.

Ital

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