Britain’s Highway Agency is making use of new materials, Fiber-Reinforeced Polymers, to build bridges where they were not previously feasible.

The use of FRP in the M6 Motorway is just one example of how new materials such as glass and engineering techniques such as cantilevered driving-lanes are allowing construction of bridges that are stronger and longer than anything built previously. The Rion-Antirion Bridge in Greece, for instance, links the Pelopponesians to the mainland—a connection first proposed centuries ago. The proposed Messina Bridge would connect Sicily to Italy across one of the most seismically active sea beds.