"Rion - Antirion Bridge" Rion Travelogue by amsterdam_vallon

The total cost of the project, including financial expenses incurred during the construction period, amounts to about EURO 800 million.

The financing comes from the following sources:

10% Share capital
45% State financial contribution
45% Loan from European Investment Bank guaranteed by a pool of commercial banks.

Taken from Rion-Antirion Bridge Website

Harilaos Trikoupis

Harilaos Trikoupis' vision when he was Prime Minister of Greece one hundred years ago, Greece had the great dream of a bridge crossing the 3 km Corinth Gulf strait.

In 2004, a long-standing dream will become reality.

Taken from Rion-Antirion Bridge Website

Reference

The Rion- Antirion bridge will be the longest cable stayed bridge in the world with a continuous deck of 2,250 meters.

Taken from Rion-Antirion Bridge Website

Comparison to famous bridges

Comparing to scale the Rion-Antirion bridge with world famous bridges demonstrates the magnitude of the project undertaken.

The Tatara bridge in Japan and the Normandy bridge in France are the cable-stayed bridges with the longest spans in the world (respectively 890 meters and 856 meters). With a reference span of 560 meters, the Rion-Antirion bridge shall rank in the top 10 list of the world longest span for cable-stayed bridges. However with its 4 pylons (compared to the usual set of 2), it is the cable-stayed bridge with the longest suspended deck (2,252 meters) in the world.

Such outstanding deck length outperforms the total deck length of the well-known Golden Gate suspension bridge (1,966 meters)

Taken from Rion-Antirion Bridge Website

sea bed reinforcement

The bridge environment presents an exceptional combination of adverse physical conditions:

water depth up to 65 m.;
weak sea bed;
strong seismic activity and possible tectonic movements.

Top world ranked specialists from France and Greece have collaborated to design this high tech project which includes sea bed reinforcement (by 65 meter water depth), 90 meters diameter piers ( the largest piers ever built for a bridge) and a 2,252 m fully suspended deck (a world record).

Taken from Rion-Antirion Bridge Website

Sismic simulation

The Rion-Antirion bridge is built to withstand a collision of a 180.000 tons tanker, wind speed of 250 km per hour and over 7 Richter scale earthquake.

Absorbing up to 2 meters displacement between any of its piers, the bridge is, for sure, one of the safest places to be, should a major earthquake happen in the Patras area.

Taken from Rion-Antirion Bridge Website

Rion - Antirion Bridge

This picture was taken from the Ferry.

Rion - Antirion Bridge

This picture was taken from the Ferry.