The Rio-Antirio bridge is a modern-day wonder of the world. That it is the longest (1.8 miles, 2.88 km) bridge of its type is almost an accident: a multi-towered, fully suspended cable-stay bridge is cheaper to build than a suspension bridge. Greece, being a country chronically short of funds, could only afford the cheaper cable-stay bridge. The bridge, which cost 660 million euro to build, has been called an engineering masterpiece. It was built by a French-Greek consortium.
There were some logistical problems with construction that engineers until the late 1990's had thought unsolvable: the unusually deep channel of the Gulf of Corinth (280-feet, 85m), the lack of bedrock below the sea floor even after drilling down another 300 feet(100m), the location of the bridge on an earthquake fault line, and the rapid tectonic plate extension (11 inches or 300mm/year) of the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, which the bridge spans. All of these problems were solved with some extremely creative engineering.
On April 13, 2005, the Rio-Antirio Bridge was given “The Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement” award by the American Society of Civil Engineers. This was the first time since 1960, that the award had gone to a project outside of the United States.
It was also given the "Outstanding Structure Award of 2006” given by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering and “The Outstanding Project Award 2007” given by the Deep Foundations Institute.
