National infrastructure

The Rion-Antirion bridge: Now a Fixed Link

The Rion-Antirion bridge crosses the Corinth strait near the city of Patras, connecting Peloponnese with mainland Greece. The project illustrates Greece’s new successful approach to building large, national infrastructure projects via a distinctive public/private cooperation process.

Recently completed, the bridge is one of the most challenging engineering structures in Europe and the longest cable stayed bridge in the world with a continuous deck of 2,250 meters, outdoing the Golden Gate suspension bridge (1,966m). It connects the Peloponnesian peninsula with central Greece, providing an uninterrupted transport link between Patras, Greece’s third largest city, and Igoumenitsa, Greece’s northeastern port and the eastern end point of the Egnatia Highway. Patras is also one end point of the PATHE Highway, connecting Patras, Athens, and Thessaloniki, so that a continuous road transport loop between Greece’s main cities and ports is now complete. Thus the new bridge facilitates communication between Greece and Italy through the harbors of Patras and Igoumenitsa.

As ekathimerini.com reports, the last section of the Rio-Antirio bridge was lowered into place on Monday (25/5/2004). To mark the occasion, the mayors of Rio and Antirrio met halfway on the bridge, on May 29.

Torchbearers carrying the Olympic Flame of the Athens Games crossed it en route to the Athens' Olympic Stadium on August 8. The first torch bearer to cross was the mastermind of the bridge, French General Director Jean-Paul Teyssandier. Among the torch bearers were the German coach of Greece's national soccer team which won the Euro 2004 soccer championship in Portugal, Otto Rehhagel, the members of the Greek Olympic Soccer Team and its coach Stratos Apostolakis, former minister Costas Laliotis and renowned singer Alkistis Ptotopsalti. The Torch was to arrive in Patra in the evening where it would stay overnight. The monumental bridge was officially inaugurated on August 12.

In honour of the man who envisioned the bridge spanning the 3km-wide Corinth Gulf, it is named after statesman  Harilaos Trikoupis, born in Messolongi, an historic town on the north coast of the Corinth Gulf strait, who was Prime Minister of Greece more than one hundred years ago.

The vastly improved flow of goods and people will not only expedite commercial traffic and improve import and export movement, but will facilitate the movement of the local community and tourists, who for years have had to rely on a laborious ferry service to cross the short 2.2 kilometer isthmus. Traffic studies indicate that about 7,000 vehicles would use the bridge daily, compared to about 5,000 using the ferry crossing at present. But numbers could rise to 20,000 daily during the summer tourist season.

The project comes under the auspices of the Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works (MEPPPW) acting on behalf of the Greek State. The Ministry signed with the Concessionaire Gefyra, a French-Greek consortium the first private infrastructure concession in modern Greece. The project has a total estimated cost of €750million, with 40% coming from the Greek state, 50% supplied by a European Investment Bank (EIB) loan, and 10% provided by the shareholders of Gefyra S.A. In addition to employing hundreds of Greek employees, the integrated joint venture constructing the bridge employs French engineers and management personnel, who provide high-level expertise and knowledge transfer, a value added to the Greek construction industry.

The greatest challenge for the designers was to build an earthquake resistant bridge (more than 7 Richter), since the site is at the epicenter of seismic activity. The designers and engineers benefited from the expertise of scientists at Patras University, one of the country’s leading centers for research in seismology, and engineers are confident that during an eventual earthquake, "one of the safest places to be, without a doubt, would be on the bridge itself." 

Related links:

Hellenic Center for Investment: A New Axis in Greece's Transport Infrastructure

Rion-Antirion bridge: GEFYRA SA

Related photos:

Getty Images - Greece Puts Finishing Touches To Giant Suspension Bridge

Nikos Daniilidis - Construction of Rion - Antirrion Bridge

Various Sources