Italy's $5-billion, 3.7-kilometer-long Messina Strait bridge will not be built, if the new national government's environment minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio gets his way. A final design/build contract was signed this March after many years of planning. If built, the project would include the world longest suspended span, at 3.3 km.
Minister Scanio reportedly vowed to divert the bridge's funding to rail construction on the mainland. Scanio, leader of Italy's Green Party, is part of the fragile new government coalition of Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who recently narrowly beat Silvio Berlusconi in national elections.