Strait of Messina Bridge have made the span more than 60% longer than the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan—the largest suspension bridge in the world at . Plans called for four traffic lanes (two driving lanes and one emergency lane in each direction), two railway tracks and two pedestrian lanes. In order to provide a minimum vertical clearance for navigation of , the height of the two towers was to be . This would have been taller than the Millau Viaduct in France (currently the tallest bridge in the world at ). The bridge's suspension system would have relied on two pairs of steel cables,
Millau Viaduct speed of construction then rapidly increased. Every three days, each pylon increased in height by . This performance was mainly due to sliding shuttering. Thanks to a system of shoe anchorages and fixed rails in the heart of the pylons, a new layer of concrete could be poured every 20 minutes. The bridge road deck was constructed on land at the ends of the Viaduct, and rolled lengthwise from one pylon to the next, with eight temporary towers providing additional support. The movement was accomplished by a computer-controlled system of pairs of wedges under the deck; the upper and lower