idea of a tunnel under the English Channel. This tunnel was to start at Contesse and was to pass below Messina and Ganzirri at a depth of 150 m, crossing the Strait to Punta Pezzo and resurfacing at Torre Cavallo. A geologic study of the area of the Strait of Messina was published in 1909 (historical Arch. Sicilian year XXXIV f.1,2) and in 1921, a study of an undersea tunnel was released to the Geographic Conference of Florence. A group of railway civil engineers studied the possibility of a suspension bridge but nothing came of it. The idea was revived in 1953 by master bridge builder David B. Steinman with a plan to build a bridge that crossed the Strait using two towers sunk in deep waters. The proposed span would have represented a world record, eclipsing the then-longest centre span of the Golden Gate Bridge and beating the Mackinac Straits Bridge (then in planning) with a total length of . The proposed structure would have cleared the sea by to allow shipping passage, and to have had two decks, the lower to carry two rail lines, and above, a road deck wide. The main cables would have been in diameter. The bridge would have required 12,000 workers and cost hundreds of billions of lire. Early planning stages In the 1960s, a wide variety of proposals were advanced, including everything from submerged tubes to floating struts, pontoons and a revolving central section of the bridge. None turned out to be realistic. In 1969, an international design competition was arranged. In the 1970s, feasibility studies were undertaken by the State Railways leading to the creation of a private company with responsibility for planning the crossing of the Strait. In the 1980s, the Messina Strait Company (Stretto di Messina S.p.A.) was set up with support from the State Railways, the regions and IRI. It concluded that it would be feasible to build a suspension bridge. Detailed plans followed in the 1990s with final approval from the High Council of Public Works (Consiglio Superiore dei Lavori Pubblici). Development of detailed plans The 2006 plan called for a single-span suspension bridge with a central span of . This would have made the span more than 60% longer than the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkey—the longest suspension bridge in the world at . Plans called for four traffic lanes (two driving lanes and one emergency