151-544: The Strait of Messina Bridge ( Italian : Ponte sullo stretto di Messina ) is a planned 3.6-kilometre suspension bridge across the Strait of Messina , connecting Torre Faro in Sicily with Villa San Giovanni on the Italian peninsula. The bridge has been controversial due to the impact of earthquakes, strong currents in the strait, concerns of disruption of bird migration routes, and
302-656: A special district to design, build and finance the bridge. San Francisco and most of the counties along the North Coast of California joined the Golden Gate Bridge District, with the exception being Humboldt County , whose residents opposed the bridge's construction and the traffic it would generate. Strauss was the chief engineer in charge of the overall design and construction of the bridge project. However, because he had little understanding or experience with cable-suspension designs, responsibility for much of
453-494: A 40% lighter, and stronger, steel orthotropic deck panels, over 401 nights without closing the roadway completely to traffic. The roadway was also widened by two feet, resulting in outside curb lane width of 11 feet, instead of 10 feet for the inside lanes. This deck replacement was the bridge's greatest engineering project since it was built and cost over $ 68 million. The bridge-opening celebration in 1937 began on May 27 and lasted for one week. The day before vehicle traffic
604-515: A bridge between Calabria and Sicily. Later, in 1870, Navone proposed building a tunnel based on Napoleon 's idea of a tunnel under the English Channel . This tunnel was to start at Contesse and was to pass below Messina and Ganzirri at a depth of 150 m (490 ft), crossing the strait to Punta Pezzo and resurfacing at Torre Cavallo. A geologic study of the strait was published in 1909 (historical Arch. Sicilian year XXXIV f.1,2), and in 1921,
755-500: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when
906-785: A lawsuit against the project, leading to a mass boycott of the ferry service. In May 1924, Colonel Herbert Deakyne held the second hearing on the Bridge on behalf of the Secretary of War in a request to use federal land for construction. Deakyne, on behalf of the Secretary of War, approved the transfer of land needed for the bridge structure and leading roads to the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association" and both San Francisco County and Marin County, pending further bridge plans by Strauss. Another ally
1057-464: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of
1208-521: A local whale watching operator. Tolls are only collected from southbound traffic at the toll plaza on the San Francisco side of the bridge. All-electronic tolling has been in effect since 2013, and drivers may either pay using the FasTrak electronic toll collection device, using the license plate tolling program, or via a one time payment online. Effective July 1, 2025 ( 2025-07-01 ) ,
1359-657: A local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has
1510-525: A massive cantilever on each side of the strait, connected by a central suspension segment, which Strauss promised could be built for $ 17 million (equivalent to $ 476 million in 2023). A suspension-bridge design was chosen, using recent advances in bridge design and metallurgy . Strauss spent more than a decade drumming up support in Northern California. The bridge faced opposition, including litigation, from many sources. The Department of War
1661-445: A metal curb, but railings between the walkways and the traffic lanes were added in 2003, primarily as a measure to prevent bicyclists from falling into the roadway. The bridge was designated as part of U.S. Bicycle Route 95 in 2021. The main walkway is on the eastern side, and is open for use by both pedestrians and bicycles in the morning to mid-afternoon during weekdays (5:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.), and to pedestrians only for
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#17328699153411812-459: A minimum of approximately 3 km (1.9 miles) between Capo Peloro in Sicily and Torre Cavallo in Calabria. A similar distance separates Pezzo and Ganzirri; at that point, the strait is only 72 m (236 ft) deep, while in other places it can reach 200 m (660 ft) deep. It is also characterised by strong currents, and the region has significant seismicity. The idea of a bridge crossing
1963-525: A movable barrier since the 1980s, only in March 2005 did the Bridge Board of Directors commit to finding funding to complete the $ 2 million study required prior to the installation of a movable median barrier. Installation of the resulting barrier was completed on January 11, 2015, following a closure of 45.5 hours to private vehicle traffic, the longest in the bridge's history. The new barrier system, including
2114-645: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as
2265-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving
2416-558: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of
2567-497: A road deck 30 m (98 ft) wide. The main cables were designed with a diameter of 1 m (39 in). The construction of the bridge would have required 12,000 workers and cost hundreds of billions of lire . The 2006 plan called for a single-span suspension bridge with a central span of 3,300 m (10,800 ft). This would have made the span more than 60% longer than the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkey—currently
2718-547: A scaffold (secured by undersized bolts) with twelve men on it fell into and broke through the safety net; two of the twelve survived the 200-foot (61 m) fall into the water. The bridge opened May 27, 1937. The Round House Café diner was then included in the southeastern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, adjacent to the tourist plaza which was renovated in 2012. The Round House Café, an Art Deco design by Alfred Finnila completed in 1938, has been popular throughout
2869-477: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Golden Gate Bridge The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate , the one-mile-wide (1.6 km) strait connecting San Francisco Bay and
3020-474: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility
3171-404: A site near the bridge. As part of the fiftieth anniversary celebration in 1987, the Golden Gate Bridge district again closed the bridge to automobile traffic and allowed pedestrians to cross it on May 24. This Sunday morning celebration attracted 750,000 to 1,000,000 people, and ineffective crowd control meant the bridge became congested with roughly 300,000 people, causing the center span of
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#17328699153413322-399: A strong windstorm soon after it was completed, because of an unexpected aeroelastic flutter . Ellis was also tasked with designing a "bridge within a bridge" in the southern abutment, to avoid the need to demolish Fort Point, a pre–Civil War masonry fortification viewed, even then, as worthy of historic preservation. He penned a graceful steel arch spanning the fort and carrying the roadway to
3473-539: A study of an undersea tunnel was released to the Geographic Conference of Florence . A group of railway civil engineers studied the possibility of a suspension bridge, but nothing came of it. The idea was revived in 1953 by bridge builder David B. Steinman , with a plan to build a bridge that crossed the strait using two 220 m (720 ft) towers sunk in 120 m (390 ft) deep waters. The proposed 1,524 m (5,000 ft) span would have represented
3624-700: A tight bottleneck for transport). Another argument against the bridge is the poor state of transport infrastructure in Sicily, particularly the railroad and the A20 autostrada linking Messina to Palermo, and the poor condition of the A2 autostrada on the mainland, linking Reggio Calabria to Naples. The greatest structural design problem of the bridge is the aerodynamic stability of its deck under wind and seismic activity. Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )
3775-504: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to
3926-490: A world record, eclipsing the then-longest 1,275 m (4,183 ft) centre span of the Golden Gate Bridge and beating the 2,256 m (7,402 ft) Mackinac Straits Bridge (then in planning) with a total length of 2,988 m (9,803 ft). The proposed structure was to clear the sea by 50 m (160 ft) for navigation and have two decks—a lower deck carrying two rail lines, and 7 m (23 ft) above,
4077-406: Is 4,200 feet (1,280 m) and its total height is 746 feet (227 m). Before the bridge was built, the only practical short route between San Francisco and what is now Marin County was by boat across a section of San Francisco Bay. A ferry service began as early as 1820, with a regularly scheduled service beginning in the 1840s for the purpose of transporting water to San Francisco. In 1867,
4228-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin
4379-668: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are the most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and
4530-729: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about
4681-478: Is estimated to be 80,000 miles (130,000 km). Each of the bridge's two towers has approximately 600,000 rivets . In the 1960s, when the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) was being planned, the engineering community had conflicting opinions about the feasibility of running train tracks north to Marin County over the bridge. In June 1961, consultants hired by BART completed a study that determined
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4832-528: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since
4983-455: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it
5134-498: Is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and a local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of
5285-458: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around
5436-430: Is officially an orange vermilion called international orange . The color was selected by consulting architect Irving Morrow because it complements the natural surroundings and enhances the bridge's visibility in fog. The bridge was originally painted with red lead primer and a lead-based topcoat, which was touched up as required. In the mid-1960s, a program was started to improve corrosion protection by stripping
5587-414: Is split with three lanes in each direction. From 1968 to 2015, opposing traffic was separated by small, plastic pylons ; during that time, there were 16 fatalities resulting from 128 head-on collisions. To improve safety, the speed limit on the Golden Gate Bridge was reduced from 50 to 45 mph (80 to 72 km/h) on October 1, 1983. Although there had been discussion concerning the installation of
5738-626: Is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and
5889-538: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as
6040-501: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,
6191-936: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),
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6342-672: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in
6493-816: The Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and the municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian
6644-649: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in
6795-763: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and
6946-534: The Millau Viaduct in France (currently the tallest bridge in the world, at 341 m (1,119 ft)). The bridge's suspension system would have relied on two pairs of steel cables , each with a diameter of 1.24 m (49 in) and a total length, between the anchor blocks, of 5,300 m (17,400 ft). The design included 20.3 km (12.6 miles) of road links and 19.8 km (12.3 miles) of railway links to
7097-583: The Pacific Ocean . The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco , California —the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula —to Marin County , carrying both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. It also carries pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and is designated as part of U.S. Bicycle Route 95 . Recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of
7248-539: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after
7399-536: The University of Cincinnati , he placed a brick from his alma mater's demolished McMicken Hall in the south anchorage before the concrete was poured. Strauss also innovated the use of movable safety netting beneath the men working, which saved many lives. Nineteen men saved by the nets over the course of the project formed the Half Way to Hell Club . Nonetheless, eleven men were killed in falls, ten on February 17, 1937, when
7550-514: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed
7701-624: The Wonders of the Modern World , the bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco and California. The idea of a fixed link between San Francisco and Marin had gained increasing popularity during the late 19th century, but it was not until the early 20th century that such a link became feasible. Joseph Strauss served as chief engineer for the project, with Leon Moisseiff , Irving Morrow and Charles Ellis making significant contributions to its design. The bridge opened to
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#17328699153417852-420: The longest suspension bridge in the world, at 2,023 m (6,637 ft). 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 65 m (213 ft), the height of the two towers was to be 382.6 m (1,255 ft). This would have been taller than
8003-797: The longest suspension bridge in the world . The bridge would be part of the Berlin–Palermo railway axis (Line 1) of the Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T). The Strait of Messina is a funnel-shaped arm of sea that connects the Ionian Sea in the south to the Tyrrhenian Sea to the north. The width of the strait varies from a maximum of approximately 16 km (9.9 miles) (between Capo d'Alì in Sicily and Punta Pellaro in Calabria ) to
8154-406: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From
8305-458: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and
8456-438: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian
8607-404: The Danish and Canadian companies COWI A/S , Sund & Baelt A/S, and Buckland & Taylor Ltd., who would handle project engineering. Completion was planned to take six years, at an estimated cost of €3.9 billion. The bridge has been controversial due to the impact of earthquakes, strong currents in the strait, concerns about disruption of bird migration routes, and possible infiltration of
8758-554: The Danish engineering firm COWI . On 27 March 2006, Impregilo and Stretto di Messina announced that they had signed a contract assigning final project planning to a general contractor. Impregilo S.p.A., the lead partner, had a 45% share. Other participants were Spain's Sacyr (18.70%), the Italian companies Società Italiana per Condotte D'Acqua S.p.A. (15%) and Cooperativa Muratori & Cementisti-C.M.C. of Ravenna (13%), Japan's IHI Corporation (6.30%), and Consorzio Stabile A.C.I. S.c.p.a (2%). The general contractor would also be assisted by
8909-430: The Depression, continued working 70 hours per week on an unpaid basis, eventually turning in ten volumes of hand calculations. With an eye toward self-promotion and posterity, Strauss downplayed the contributions of his collaborators who, despite receiving little recognition or compensation, are largely responsible for the final form of the bridge. He succeeded in having himself credited as the person most responsible for
9060-417: The Golden Gate ," was chosen to commemorate the event. Strauss wrote a poem that is now on the Golden Gate Bridge entitled "The Mighty Task is Done." The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington, D.C. signaling the official start of vehicle traffic over the Bridge at noon. Weeks of civil and cultural activities called "the Fiesta" followed. A statue of Strauss was moved in 1955 to
9211-534: The Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 4,200 feet (1,280 m). Since 1964 its main span length has been surpassed by eighteen bridges ; it now has the second-longest main span in the Americas , after the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. The total length of the Golden Gate Bridge from abutment to abutment is 8,981 feet (2,737 m). The Golden Gate Bridge's clearance above high water averages 220 feet (67 m) while its towers, at 746 feet (227 m) above
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#17328699153419362-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has
9513-439: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,
9664-423: The Marin Headlands Express bus line, but this was indefinitely suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic . The Marin Airporter, a private company, also offers service across the bridge between Marin County and San Francisco International Airport . A visitor center and gift shop, originally called the "Bridge Pavilion" (since renamed the "Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center"), is located on the San Francisco side of
9815-497: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from
9966-470: The Messina Bridge would indeed go ahead, pledging €1.3 billion as a contribution to the total cost, estimated at €6.1 billion. The project was cancelled again on 26 February 2013, by primeinister Mario Monti 's government, due to budget constraints. A decade later, the project was revived again with a decree by Giorgia Meloni 's government, on 16 March 2023, which received presidential approval on 31 March 2023. If fully approved and built, it will be
10117-499: The Messina bridge had been revived, pledging €1.3 billion as a contribution to its estimated cost of €6.1 billion. Berlusconi claimed that work would be completed by 2016. Until 2006, when the project was halted, the work had been assigned to a consortium of Impregilo (now called Webuild ), Condotte d'Acqua, Cooperativa Muratori & Cementisti, and Consorzio Stabile A.C.I., alongside Spain's Sacyr and Japan's IHI Corporation . On 23 December 2009, preparatory work began, with
10268-423: The Sausalito Land and Ferry Company opened. In 1920, the service was taken over by the Golden Gate Ferry Company , which merged in 1929 with the ferry system of the Southern Pacific Railroad , becoming the Southern Pacific-Golden Gate Ferries, Ltd., the largest ferry operation in the world. Once for railroad passengers and customers only, Southern Pacific's automobile ferries became very profitable and important to
10419-403: The bridge are homes to varieties of wildlife such as bobcats , harbor seals, and sea lions. Three species of cetaceans (whales) that had been absent in the area for many years have shown recent recoveries/(re)colonizations in the vicinity of the bridge; researchers studying them have encouraged stronger protections and recommended that the public watch them from the bridge or from land, or use
10570-493: The bridge as part of the concurrency between U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 . Although part of the National Highway System , the bridge is not officially part of California's Highway System . For example, under the California Streets and Highways Code § 401 , Route 101 ends at "the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge" and then resumes at "a point in Marin County opposite San Francisco". The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District has jurisdiction over
10721-437: The bridge is quite unnecessary, since the local economy is already providing for the conversion of the local former NATO Comiso Airport into a commercial terminal to export vegetables to Northern Europe . Alternatively, a much cheaper revamping of the existing structures is claimed to be sufficient (for instance, the ferry lines on the Calabria side are accessible to trucks only by driving through very narrow streets, which are
10872-462: The bridge should begin by 2024, with the opening of the project scheduled for 2032. On 31 March, the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella approved the Decreto Ponte ("bridge decree"). A construction consortium , led by Impregilo , was chosen in 2005, with work set to begin in the second half of 2006. The bridge was designed by Danish architects at Dissing+Weitling in close collaboration with
11023-443: The bridge to flatten out under the weight. Although the bridge is designed to flex in that way under heavy loads, and was estimated not to have exceeded 40% of the yielding stress of the suspension cables, bridge officials stated that uncontrolled pedestrian access was not being considered as part of the 75th anniversary on Sunday, May 27, 2012, because of the additional law enforcement costs required "since 9/11. " Until 1964,
11174-506: The bridge was not advisable. Aesthetics was the foremost reason why the first design of Joseph Strauss was rejected. Upon re-submission of his bridge construction plan, he added details, such as lighting, to outline the bridge's cables and towers. In 1999, it was ranked fifth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects . The color of the bridge
11325-498: The bridge's southern anchorage. Ellis was a Greek scholar and mathematician who at one time was a University of Illinois professor of engineering despite having no engineering degree. He eventually earned a degree in civil engineering from the University of Illinois prior to designing the Golden Gate Bridge and spent the last twelve years of his career as a professor at Purdue University. He became an expert in structural design, writing
11476-486: The bridge's suspension section was capable of supporting service on a new lower deck. In July 1961, one of the bridge's consulting engineers, Clifford Paine, disagreed with their conclusion. In January 1962, due to more conflicting reports on feasibility, the bridge's board of directors appointed an engineering review board to analyze all the reports. The review board's report, released in April 1962, concluded that running BART on
11627-550: The bridge, adjacent to the southeast parking lot. It opened in 2012, in time for the bridge's 75th-anniversary celebration. A cafe, outdoor exhibits, and restroom facilities are located nearby. On the Marin side of the bridge, only accessible from the northbound lanes, is the H. Dana Bower Rest Area and Vista Point, named after the first landscape architect for the California Division of Highways. Lands and waters under and around
11778-588: The bridge. On the mainland, the bridge was to connect to the new stretch of the Salerno - Reggio Calabria motorway (A3) and to the planned Naples -Reggio Calabria high-speed rail line; on the Sicilian side, to the Messina-Catania (A18) and Messina-Palermo (A20) motorways as well as the new Messina railway station (to be built by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana ). The bridge was planned to connect Reggio Calabria to Messina,
11929-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside
12080-520: The channel, and frequent strong winds. Experts said that ferocious winds and blinding fogs would prevent construction and operation. Although the idea of a bridge spanning the Golden Gate was not new, the proposal that eventually took hold was made in a 1916 San Francisco Bulletin article by former engineering student James Wilkins. San Francisco's City Engineer estimated the cost at $ 100 million (equivalent to $ 2.8 billion in 2023), and impractical for
12231-630: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian
12382-449: The cost. Additionally, transport minister Alessandro Bianchi pointed out that the road and rail links leading to the location of the proposed bridge are not capable of supporting enough traffic to make the bridge profitable. Other reasons for abandoning the plan were earthquake risk and fears that the bridge would enrich the networks of organized crime in Italy , such as Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta . On 15 April 2008, Silvio Berlusconi
12533-563: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of
12684-508: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to
12835-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during
12986-515: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in
13137-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date
13288-482: The design and vision of the bridge. Only much later were the contributions of the others on the design team properly appreciated. In May 2007, the Golden Gate Bridge District issued a formal report on 70 years of stewardship of the famous bridge and decided to give Ellis major credit for the design of the bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District, authorized by an act of the California Legislature ,
13439-572: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of
13590-523: The diversion of the Tyrrhenian railway at Cannitello on the Italian mainland side of the strait. In February 2013, the project was shut down by Mario Monti , the new Italian premier, for lack of funds. In September 2016, the project was reconsidered by the government of Matteo Renzi . On 3 June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic , premier Giuseppe Conte brought up the topic of the bridge, declaring that
13741-408: The eastern walkway. Bus service across the bridge is provided by one public transportation agency, Golden Gate Transit , which runs numerous bus lines throughout the week. The southern end of the bridge, near the toll plaza and parking lot, is also accessible daily from 5:30 a.m. to midnight by San Francisco Muni line 28. Muni formerly offered Saturday and Sunday service across the bridge on
13892-472: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until
14043-522: The engineering and architecture fell on other experts. Strauss's initial design proposal (two double cantilever spans linked by a central suspension segment) was unacceptable from a visual standpoint. The final suspension design was conceived and championed by Leon Moisseiff , the engineer of the Manhattan Bridge in New York City. Irving Morrow, a relatively unknown residential architect, designed
14194-458: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by
14345-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in
14496-563: The four-billion-euro coverage necessary for the construction and that he could obtain the other two necessary for the infrastructures connected to it from private financing. On 16 March 2023, the Government of Italy, chaired by Giorgia Meloni , with Matteo Salvini at the Ministry of Infrastructure , approved a decree to proceed with the construction of the bridge by remodeling the existing project. On 19 March, WeBuild's Pietro Salini said work on
14647-468: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in
14798-668: The government would evaluate the resumption of work without prejudice. On 22 April 2021, the CEO of Webuild, Pietro Salini , in a joint press conference with the President of the Sicilian Region Nello Musumeci , announced that he was ready to build the Strait of Messina Bridge, starting immediately with the work and on the basis of the executive project and construction site approved definitively in 2013. He declared that he already had
14949-467: The infiltration of mafia groups Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta in area construction projects. While a bridge across the Strait of Messina had been proposed since ancient times, the first detailed plan was made in the 1990s for a suspension bridge. The project was cancelled in 2006 under prime minister Romano Prodi . On 6 March 2009, as part of a massive new public works programme, prime minister Silvio Berlusconi 's government announced that construction of
15100-483: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as
15251-563: The language has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants. During the Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak
15402-631: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of
15553-491: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in
15704-525: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian
15855-563: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of
16006-422: The mafia groups Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta in area construction projects. Supporters see the bridge as a huge job-creation scheme and a boost for tourism. However, opponents question the priority of the bridge, claiming that if the government concentrated instead on making Sicily's roads more efficient, drivers would be able to reach the coast more quickly at a fraction of the bridge's cost. Others believe that
16157-411: The major contributors to the Golden Gate Bridge lists contractors, engineering-staff, directors and officers: Contractors Engineering staff Directors Officers On December 1, 1951, a windstorm revealed swaying and rolling instabilities of the bridge, resulting in its closure. In 1953 and 1954, the bridge was retrofitted with lateral and diagonal bracing that connected the lower chords of
16308-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity
16459-476: The new city by various Sicilian nationalist groups. Among the engineers who participated in the project was Giorgio Diana , who mainly dealt with the aeroelastic aspect. On 12 October 2006, the Italian Parliament voted 272 to 232 in favour of abandoning the plan due to the bridge's "doubtful usefulness and viability", as well as the inability of the already burdened Italian treasury to bear its share of
16610-408: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on
16761-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of
16912-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:
17063-411: The original paint and repainting the bridge with zinc silicate primer and vinyl topcoats. Since 1990, acrylic topcoats have been used instead for air-quality reasons. The program was completed in 1995 and it is now maintained by 38 painters who touch up the paintwork where it becomes seriously corroded. The ongoing maintenance task of painting the bridge is continuous. Most maps and signage mark
17214-453: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it
17365-515: The overall shape of the bridge towers, the lighting scheme, and Art Deco elements, such as the tower decorations, streetlights, railing, and walkways. The famous International Orange color was Morrow's personal selection, winning out over other possibilities, including the US Navy's suggestion that it be painted with black and yellow stripes to ensure visibility by passing ships. Senior engineer Charles Alton Ellis, collaborating remotely with Moisseiff,
17516-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to
17667-469: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of
17818-528: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to
17969-491: The public in 1937 and has undergone various retrofits and other improvement projects in the decades since. The Golden Gate Bridge is described in Frommer's travel guide as "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world." At the time of its opening in 1937, it was both the longest and the tallest suspension bridge in the world, titles it held until 1964 and 1998 respectively. Its main span
18120-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed
18271-479: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome
18422-606: The regional economy. The ferry crossing between the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco and Sausalito Ferry Terminal in Marin County took approximately 20 minutes and cost $ 1.00 per vehicle prior to 1937, when the price was reduced to compete with the new bridge. The trip from the San Francisco Ferry Building took 27 minutes. Many wanted to build a bridge to connect San Francisco to Marin County. San Francisco
18573-422: The regular toll rate for passenger cars is $ 9.50, with FasTrak users paying a discounted toll of $ 9.25. During peak traffic hours, carpool vehicles carrying three or more people, or motorcycles may pay a discounted toll of $ 7.25 if they have FasTrak and use the designated carpool lane. Drivers must pay within 48 hours after crossing the bridge or they will be sent a toll violation invoice. The toll violation penalty
18724-415: The remaining daylight hours (until 6:00 p.m., or 9:00 p.m. during DST ). The eastern walkway is reserved for pedestrians on weekends (5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., or 9:00 p.m. during DST), and is open exclusively to bicyclists in the evening and overnight, when it is closed to pedestrians. The western walkway is open only for bicyclists and only during the hours when they are not allowed on
18875-507: The segment of highway that crosses the bridge instead of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The movable median barrier between the lanes is moved several times daily to conform to traffic patterns. On weekday mornings, traffic flows mostly southbound into the city, so four of the six lanes run southbound. Conversely, on weekday afternoons, four lanes run northbound. During off-peak periods and weekends, traffic
19026-421: The standard textbook of the time. Ellis did much of the technical and theoretical work that built the bridge, but he received none of the credit in his lifetime. In November 1931, Strauss fired Ellis and replaced him with a former subordinate, Clifford Paine, ostensibly for wasting too much money sending telegrams back and forth to Moisseiff. Ellis, obsessed with the project and unable to find work elsewhere during
19177-519: The strait is an old one. The Romans considered building a bridge joining Calabria and Sicily made of boats and barrels. Pliny the Elder , a philosopher and Roman military leader born in 23 AD, wrote of a plan to bridge the strait with a series of connecting boats. The idea was abandoned, as it was clear that more traffic plied the strait in a north-south than east-west direction, so any structure on water could not be permanent. Charlemagne considered joining
19328-464: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,
19479-474: The time of approval was $ 27 million ($ 492 million today). However, the District was unable to sell the bonds until 1932, when Amadeo Giannini , the founder of San Francisco–based Bank of America , agreed on behalf of his bank to buy the entire issue in order to help the local economy. Construction began on January 5, 1933. The project cost more than $ 35 million ($ 610 million in 2023 dollars ), and
19630-484: The time. He asked bridge engineers whether it could be built for less. One who responded, Joseph Strauss, was an ambitious engineer and poet who had, for his graduate thesis , designed a 55-mile-long (89 km) railroad bridge across the Bering Strait . At the time, Strauss had completed some 400 drawbridges —most of which were inland—and nothing on the scale of the new project. Strauss's initial drawings were for
19781-463: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and
19932-529: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),
20083-403: The two cities that face each other on either side of the strait, in order to form a single metropolitan area. This ambitious urban project was called Area Metropolitana integrata dello Stretto ("integrated metropolitan area of the strait") or simply Città dello Stretto ("city of the strait"). Among the controversies surrounding the building of the bridge was strong opposition to the formation of
20234-483: The two side trusses. This bracing stiffened the bridge deck in torsion so that it would better resist the types of twisting that had destroyed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. The original bridge used a concrete deck . Salt carried by fog or mist reached the rebar , causing corrosion and concrete spalling . From 1982 to 1986, the original bridge deck, in 747 sections, was systematically replaced with
20385-466: The two sides with a series of bridges. This idea was revived by the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard in the 11th century and by Roger II of Sicily in the 12th. In 1876, Giuseppe Zanardelli was convinced that the strait could be linked by either a bridge or a tunnel. In 1866, public works minister Stefano Jacini gave Alfredo Cottrau, an internationally recognised engineer, the task of drawing up plans for
20536-564: The water, were the world's tallest on a suspension bridge until 1993 when it was surpassed by the Mezcala Bridge , in Mexico. The weight of the roadway is hung from 250 pairs of vertical suspender ropes, which are attached to two main cables . The main cables pass over the two main towers and are fixed in concrete at each end. Each cable is made of 27,572 strands of wire. The total length of galvanized steel wire used to fabricate both main cables
20687-637: The working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom ) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Italian
20838-498: The years as a starting point for various commercial tours of the bridge and an unofficial gift shop. The diner was renovated in 2012 and the gift shop was then removed as a new, official gift shop has been included in the adjacent plaza. During the bridge work, the Assistant Civil Engineer of California Alfred Finnila had overseen the entire iron work of the bridge as well as half of the bridge's road work. Plaque of
20989-469: The zipper trucks, cost approximately $ 30.3 million to purchase and install. The bridge carries about 112,000 vehicles per day according to the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District. The bridge is popular with pedestrians and bicyclists, and was built with walkways on either side of the six vehicle traffic lanes. Initially, they were separated from the traffic lanes by only
21140-474: Was allowed, 200,000 people crossed either on foot or on roller skates. On opening day, Mayor Angelo Rossi and other officials rode the ferry to Marin, then crossed the bridge in a motorcade past three ceremonial "barriers," the last a blockade of beauty queens who required Joseph Strauss to present the bridge to the Highway District before allowing him to pass. An official song, " There's a Silver Moon on
21291-548: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only
21442-516: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on
21593-546: Was completed ahead of schedule and $ 1.3 million under budget (equivalent to $ 28.9 million today). The Golden Gate Bridge construction project was carried out by the McClintic-Marshall Construction Co., a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Corporation founded by Howard H. McClintic and Charles D. Marshall, both of Lehigh University . Strauss remained head of the project, overseeing day-to-day construction and making some groundbreaking contributions. A graduate of
21744-476: Was concerned that the bridge would interfere with ship traffic. The US Navy feared that a ship collision or sabotage to the bridge could block the entrance to one of its main harbors. Unions demanded guarantees that local workers would be favored for construction jobs. Southern Pacific Railroad , one of the most powerful business interests in California, opposed the bridge as competition to its ferry fleet and filed
21895-529: Was incorporated in 1928 as the official entity to design, construct, and finance the Golden Gate Bridge. However, after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , the District was unable to raise the construction funds, so it lobbied for a $ 30 million bond measure (equivalent to $ 532 million today). The bonds were approved in November 1930, by votes in the counties affected by the bridge. The construction budget at
22046-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of
22197-449: Was re-elected prime minister of Italy and vowed to restart the project to build the bridge. The following month, Altero Matteoli , Italy's minister of infrastructure and transport, confirmed the government's intent to restart work on the bridge in a letter to Pietro Ciucci , the president of Società Stretto di Messina. On 6 March 2009, as part of a massive new public works programme, Berlusconi's government announced that plans to construct
22348-630: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by
22499-424: Was the fledgling automobile industry , which supported the development of roads and bridges to increase demand for automobiles. The bridge's name was first used when the project was initially discussed in 1917 by M.M. O'Shaughnessy , city engineer of San Francisco, and Strauss. The name became official with the passage of the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act by the state legislature in 1923, creating
22650-399: Was the largest American city still served primarily by ferry boats. Because it did not have a permanent link with communities around the bay, the city's growth rate was below the national average. Many experts said that a bridge could not be built across the 6,700-foot (2,000-metre) strait, which had strong, swirling tides and currents, with water 372 ft (113 m) deep at the center of
22801-411: Was the principal engineer of the project. Moisseiff produced the basic structural design, introducing his "deflection theory" by which a thin, flexible roadway would flex in the wind, greatly reducing stress by transmitting forces via suspension cables to the bridge towers. Although the Golden Gate Bridge design has proved sound, a later Moisseiff design, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge , collapsed in
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