Impregilo S.p.A., the lead partner had a 45% share. Other participants were Spain’s Sacyr (18.70%), the Italian companies Società Italiana per Condotte D’Acqua S.p.A. (15%) and Cooperativa Muratori & Cementisti-C.M.C. of Ravenna (13%), Japan’s IHI Corporation (6.30%), and Consorzio Stabile A.C.I. S.c.p.a (2%). The General Contractor would also be assisted by the Danish and Canadian companies COWI A/S, Sund & Baelt A/S and Buckland & Taylor Ltd., who would handle project engineering. Completion was projected to take six years, at a projected cost of €3.9 billion. The first task of the General Contractor was to draw up the final project. Later initiatives Criticisms Supporters see the bridge as a huge job-creation scheme and a boost for tourism. However, opponents question the priority of the bridge, claiming that if the government concentrated instead on making Sicily's roads more efficient, drivers would be able to reach the coast more quickly at a fraction of the bridge's cost. Others believe that the bridge is quite unnecessary, since the local economy is already providing for the conversion of the local former NATO airport in Comiso into a commercial terminal to export vegetables to Northern Europe. Alternatively, a much cheaper revamping of the current structures is claimed to be sufficient (for instance, the ferry lines on the Calabria side are now accessible by trucks only by driving through very narrow streets, which are a tight bottleneck for transport). Another argument against the bridge is the poor state of the transport infrastructure in Sicily, particularly the railroad and the A20 autostrada linking Messina to Palermo, and the poor state of the A2 autostrada on the mainland linking Reggio Calabria to Naples. The greatest structural design problem of the bridge itself is the aerodynamic stability of its deck under wind and seismic activity. See also List of longest suspension bridge spans Helsinki-Valletta Corridor Trans-European Transport Network Strait of Sicily Tunnel Intercontinental and transoceanic fixed links Akashi Kaikyō Bridge References Further reading Fabio Spadi (2001) "The Bridge on the Strait of Messina: 'Lowering' the Right of Innocent Passage?" International and Comparative Law Quarterly 50: 411 ff. "From Rome to Sicily: Plane or Train?" Expert Travel Advice, The New York Times, Feb. 7, 2008 The New York Times. Fabio Brancaleoni, Giorgio Diana, Ezio Faccioli, Giuseppe Fiammenghi, Ian Firth, Niels J. Gimsing, Michele Jamiolkowski, Peter Sluszka, Giovanni Solari, Gianluca Valensise, Enzo Vullo: The Messina Strait Bridge - A Challenge and