Connecting Sicily to southern Italy | Domestic P3 legislation booming | Understanding America's mass transit woes

A bridge connecting mainland southern Italy to Sicily has been a long-elusive goal for Italian engineers - and not just due to the Bel Paese's febrile politics.

In 2005, the Italian government awarded a turnkey contract to a WeBuild-led joint venture (at the time known as Impregilo S.p.A.), only to cancel the project a year later. But plans to build what would be the world's longest suspension bridge - over 2 miles long - are alive once again. At the urging of Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini, Italy's Council of Ministers has signed a decree that aims to approve the bridge's executive design by next summer. The project could also take advantage of EU COVID recovery funds to update existing environmental impact statements and get the project moving more quickly.