[HN Gopher] Italy's $12.7B Bridge to Sicily [video]
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Italy's $12.7B Bridge to Sicily [video]
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 47 points
Date : 2024-05-19 15:45 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| antirez wrote:
| I'm Sicilian, and I would call this a well put video. If you go
| in Messina you will see that the city is oddly oriented with the
| _back_ of the buildings and squares and everything facing the
| sea, like if the city is actively aware that the sea is
| dangerous. This shape was given by the reconstruction after the
| tsunami.
|
| Btw: taking the boat from Messina to Villa San Giovanni is quite
| a nice experience. There is a tradition to eat arancini while
| crossing. Most Sicilians are not actually hoping so much to see
| this bridge to be completed, especially since in Catania and
| Palermo there are very high traffic airports with plenty of cheap
| options to go to Rome or Milan (Catania airport is the 3rd by
| number of flights in Italy). If the fast trains available in the
| North would be available here, it would be different perhaps.
|
| About the social factors, if the bridge would start from Catania,
| where I live, I could be a bit more positive about the ability to
| complete it. Catania has kinda of a different mentality compared
| to the rest of Sicily (I guess I can tell this without biases
| since I'm from the center of Sicily and lived in multiple places
| for years). For instance Catania is the only place under Naples
| to have a subway. Apple and Ikea are in Catania, and so forth, in
| general you can make things work here, and even if this is a
| national project, local factors may play a role. Messina is not
| similarly well positioned.
| znpy wrote:
| > since in Catania and Palermo there are very high traffic
| airports with plenty of cheap options to go to Rome or Milan
|
| What you fail to mention is that very often such "cheap"
| flights and paid in part by the state with public money. If
| that bridge you'd have other options
| antirez wrote:
| Actually the exact reverse is true: the flights are in
| general overpriced during vacation seasons because emigrates
| are desperate to return home and stay with their families a
| few days. So airways companies exploit this fact. They are
| cheap in certain periods (not for government helps that are
| minimal and only recently reintroduced: an unfair price with
| a 25% of discount remains an unfair price), terribly costly
| in other periods (500 euros for 2000km flight is common),
| because the government is not protecting enough people living
| here or living in Milan/Rome but originally from Sicily. They
| should have access to decent ticket prices. At the same time
| you can go from Milano Malpensa to Lisbona with 30 euros or
| alike...
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > Catania airport is the 3rd by number of flights in Italy
|
| 5th, not 3rd [0], after Rome, Milan, Bergamo, Naples, and
| before Venice - passengers, not number of flights.
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_i...
| antirez wrote:
| Catania and Naples have the same number of flights if you
| check recent stats (last stats released:
| https://assaeroporti.com/statistiche/). Sometimes Catania is
| ahead, sometimes Naples. So indeed not 3rd but 4th, with
| Catania and Naples having the same traffic.
| ottavio wrote:
| On yearly basis, in 2023 it was #6
|
| See page 83 of
|
| https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JHNwYFeNqfE2K6u08vk2-_ujhr
| Y...
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Most Sicilians are not actually hoping so much to see this
| bridge to be completed, especially since in Catania and Palermo
| there are very high traffic airports with plenty of cheap
| options to go to Rome or Milan (Catania airport is the 3rd by
| number of flights in Italy). If the fast trains available in
| the North would be available here, it would be different
| perhaps._
|
| Would a rail connection help with shipping goods? Would a road
| connection help with transport trucks?
| antirez wrote:
| Well, this is a very fucked-up situation. When I was a child,
| during 80s, most of the Sicily / North Italy goods shipping
| was by train / boat, and we had good railways. Then a
| decision was made to favor trucks: I don't know why. So in
| general, yes, shipping goods via train was a lot better and
| less costly AFAIK. But politics play a role, as the trains
| where suppressed in Sicily with some agenda. In general
| companies shipping stuff from/to North with trucks are not in
| the cleanest hands. Note that trains can pass from Messina
| without huge issues as it was already made for decades. The
| train gets disassembled and put on the boat and assembled
| back on the other side, this happens many times every day. It
| is how it works right now. But in general, I believe that
| trains is what could give more sense to this project.
| thinkindie wrote:
| Back then most of the trucks were made by IVECO, hence
| FIAT. This is the same reason highways are quite developed
| across Italy, while Milan is the only place with proper
| infrastructure in place for commuters. It's the same reason
| Turin had to wait until early 2000s (before the Olympics)
| to get an underground rail.
|
| The biggest issue with Sicily infrastructure is that most
| of the rail lines are single tracks, plus southern of
| Salerno you don't have high speed trains. Therefore the
| bridge itself cannot make much of an impact without fixing
| the infrastructure at both sides of the (hypothetical)
| bridge.
| RaoulP wrote:
| Sicily is really stunning. You make me want to return there
| now...
|
| But I'm curious (if you don't mind) - as an accomplished
| programmer/entrepreneur, do you ever feel torn between wanting
| to live in your idyllic home of Sicily, vs. a hub like Silicon
| Valley? Do you feel limited in terms of what you can do, and
| does that matter to you?
|
| I ask because Sicily seems close to your heart, while I think
| it's also safe to assume that you would have lots of
| opportunity elsewhere. I imagine staying was a very conscious
| decision?
|
| There are lots of wonderful but "small" corners of the world
| where people might face the same dilemma.
| jtwaleson wrote:
| Off-topic, but I would one day like to start a tech hub there
| called "Sicilian Valley". An ideal place for techies from
| northern Europe to spend the winter. Rent an office with your
| team for a week or two and have a great time.
| antirez wrote:
| Yeah this is a non trivial thing. Sicily is economically
| depressed, but what is interesting is that it is generally
| not culturally depressed, I mean we had geniuses like
| Majorana because the university of math in Catania was good
| _once_ , and there are a lot of "thinkers" so you are not
| like alone in some island but with 5 million of people, part
| of which do the most desperate things and are intellectually
| very active. At the same time, the weather is good, the food
| is good, the life does not cost too much, there is a lot of
| history and nature. And... for people doing programming,
| there is the Internet, like this site. About connections with
| the IT system: in part I believe that in isolation you can
| accomplish more work, even if it is true that the group, the
| network, sometimes create a "chain effect", but I'm a very
| solitary programmer, so this setup worked for me. At the same
| time I don't "value" to remain where you were born: I respect
| a lot people that are tired form staying here and want to go
| away. What I miss the most is that the helathcare system in
| North Italy is at the same time free and among the best
| systems in the world. Here is decent, but not at the same
| level, so for serious stuff there are people going to Milan
| or Turin or Florence to get some procedure, and that's not
| cool. But, air quality is stellare compared to North, and
| this also is a part in the health story. Compromises...
| rice7th wrote:
| To be fair, Catania has more fabs than any other city in
| Italy (2 with another fab in construction), also being home
| to the largest stmicroelectronics establishment in Italy, so
| I guess it kinda is Italy's silicon valley
| rice7th wrote:
| Yea, coming from Trapani I can surely say that Catania doesn't
| even feel like Sicily. It is much more advanced than even
| Palermo, and no other city can really compete.
|
| That's the real problem of Sicily; it's not about the bridge
| itself, but rather the whole ecomomic situation and living
| standard that lags behind the rest of Italy. I don't remember
| if the rest of Sicily is affected, but in Trapani we don't even
| get fresh water every day! Instead each house has canisters and
| pumps that fill every 3 days or so. Another example might be
| the almost complete lack of actual industries and a much more
| agricultural-based economy, to the point that almost all
| sicilians also own a farm or a piece of farmland (or at least I
| think so, again, I haven't visited much outside of Trapani).
| There are *lots* of things to improve, but I still think that
| Sicily has one of the highest economic potentials of the 20
| regions, because it has lots of natural resources, people and
| space, and Catania is definitely an example of that potential
| turned into reality.
|
| Also Palermo _does_ have a subway, so Catania isn 't the only
| city with such privilege.
| Luker88 wrote:
| As an Italian, it's a wonderful project technically, but you will
| be hard pressed to find people in northern Italy that believe in
| it (can't speak for mid/lower). The tech challenges give it
| little credibility, but the mifias problems are really what makes
| it a non-starter for basically everyone here.
|
| The video shows one politician a couple of times, but he's one of
| the most unreliable ones (and Italians one in general are not
| that reliable).
|
| It's a political tool, many speculate it's just another big
| project that will never be completed, since it's a common
| historical pattern with heavy right-wing governments like the
| current one.
|
| Even though a lot of money has already been spent, it remains
| especially difficult to detach this project from its political
| side so don't hold breath, or hope.
| riffraff wrote:
| I'm from central Italy and nobody believes this will be done,
| even beyond criminal infiltrations, it's just the kind of
| projects that get brought out every few years to distract from
| actually important things.
|
| But who knows, MOSE seemed a pipe dream too.
| H8crilA wrote:
| Fun fact: this bridge is in the works for ~2000 years; the Romans
| were the first to want to build it.
|
| Also, this is a great region, if you can ever get there in an RV
| - you are not going to regret it!
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Why an RV?
| H8crilA wrote:
| Doesn't have to be one :)
| thom wrote:
| It's rumoured that they _did_ build some sort of pontoon out of
| barrels, to transport the elephants captured by Lucius
| Caecilius Metellus after the Battle of Panormus. The story's
| widely attributed to Strabo or Pliny the Elder but I can't find
| the original source, whether or not we'd believe it. Tip of the
| galea to whoever tracks it down.
| ziofill wrote:
| I'm Italian too. It's just depressing for us to see so much
| public money percolating to organized crime (as it happens with
| many public projects). Who knows how many more billions will
| follow...
| lnsru wrote:
| I guess Europeans forgot how to build and learned how to
| consume funding from public projects. I am not sure how good is
| the source, but the sums are the same as in serious German
| articles: https://eulerpool.com/en/news/politics/the-planned-
| train-rou...
|
| Stuttgart 21: from EUR3,5B to EUR11,5B and finish not in sight.
| So the bridge has potential to reach EUR50B.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Stuttgart 21: from EUR3,5B to EUR11,5B and finish not in
| sight. So the bridge has potential to reach EUR50B.
|
| That _is_ the purpose of the EU institutions. It 's the 2nd
| biggest scam, after the mandatory pension schemes. Note that
| the EU is currently jealous of the biggest ponzi of all time
| and hence wants its own: they want to remove veto-rights of
| member states on fiscal policies to be able to create an EU-
| wide, mandatory, pension fund (it's literally in talks right
| now).
|
| The public sector knows how to do one thing: seize private
| property (through taxes) to fund projects whose sole goal is
| to steal taxpayers money. Going from $3.5bn to $11bn over
| budget _is_ the goal. In that these projects are very
| successful.
|
| That's why we don't have the equivalent of Tesla in Europe
| and that's why the European State Agency is nowhere compared
| to SpaceX.
|
| There's not a dollar or a EUR that's less well used that a
| dollar or EUR that's been through public spendings.
|
| Play stupid communist games (like having gigantic public
| spendings), end, all EU-wide, with a stupid failing economy.
|
| The EU shall only keep falling into irrelevancy on the world
| scene.
| snowpid wrote:
| You guess it from two projects? There are several world
| breaking infrastructure projects in Europe. Where are you
| from?
| chx wrote:
| Why not a tunnel?
| bell-cot wrote:
| The Straits of Messina are ~250m deep, and Sicily has seen
| earthquakes up to magnitude ~7.5.
|
| Whatever their budget - there isn't enough unobtainium around
| to construct tunnel wall strong enough.
| chx wrote:
| How does this compare to the Seikan tunnel constructed 40
| years ago?
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20161018110338/http://jr.hakodat.
| ..
|
| > Minimum overburden (under seabed): 100m
|
| > Maximum sea depth: 140m
|
| Excuse me for being daft, is the difference going to be a
| showstopper ? Construction and material engineering surely
| advanced since quite a bit.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Admitting that I don't know the geology in Japan at all
| well...
|
| At the Straits of Messina, the tunnel would be crossing an
| active rift zone ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siculo-
| Calabrian_rift ). That rift is the source of those big
| earthquakes - such as
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1908_Messina_earthquake -
| which was _at_ the Straits, magnitude 7.1, and killed ~75k
| people. And for extra bonus fun -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_etna - is one of the
| world's most active volcanoes, part of that active rift
| zone, and less than 80km from the Straits.
|
| (Vs. the geological maps I can find seem to show that the
| Seikan tunnel does _not_ cross any sort of active fault.)
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