The Middle East has become seemingly obsessed with causeways in recent years. Prompted by the success of the Bahrain-Saudi causeway, built in the 1980s, several similar schemes are being planned, including the 37-kilometre-long Subiya causeway in Kuwait, the 42-kilometre Bahrain-Qatar causeway and even a 65-kilometre UAE-Qatar causeway.

But perhaps none have captured the imagination as much as the 23-kilometre, multi-billion-dollar Tiran causeway. The proposed double suspension bridge, linking Egypt and Saudi Arabia over the Straits of Tiran, will provide the first direct land link in 60 years between the two halves of the Arab world, literally and psychologically uniting the Middle East and Africa with Asia.

Given its significance, it is surprising the project has not gone ahead before. Riyadh and Cairo signed a basic agreement to develop the scheme as long ago as 1988, but a lack of political will and private sector interest meant it lay dormant for nearly two decades.

However, during the past three years, the project has been revived. Several regional companies and banks, including Saudi Aramco, Saudi Binladin Group, Kuwait’s Kharafi Group and Dexia, have committed themselves to the scheme, and Denmark’s COWI and Japan’s Pacific Consultants International have carried out initial studies. The odds have never looked better for the prospect of the causeway being built, possibly as early as 2012.

Much of the credit for resurrecting the project goes to Mohamed Ali, a Kuwait-based Egyptian engineer. With more than 20 years’ experience in bridge and causeway design, Ali saw the Tiran causeway as an opportunity too good to pass up. ‘Although the project had been on the table for 14 years, it was not really moving,’ says Ali, who is technical and financial adviser to the Egyptian Saudi Association for the Construction of the Tiran Causeway, the company set up to develop the estimated $3,000 million project on a build-operate-transfer basis. ‘So, many people came to me in 2003 and asked if I could carry out some studies, form a committee and then get back to them,’ he adds.

Ali’s first task was to scout the Straits of Tiran to locate the optimal route alignment and judge the physical feasibility of building a bridge across a channel that at points is more than 500 metres deep. It soon became clear that the water depth would be the major challenge. The relatively shallow stretch between the island of Tiran, at the centre of the straits, and the Saudi shoreline poses few engineering problems. The challenge lies between Tiran and the Sinai coast, where the deep water allows for few supporting columns.

It was while diving along that seven-kilometre-wide section of the straits that Ali found the solution to the problem. Roughly half way between Tiran and the Egyptian shoreline lies Thomas reef, a 50-metre-deep submerged outcrop perfectly suited to hold the weight of one of the bridge towers.

But even with the well-located Thomas reef, the sheer distance between Tiran, the reef and Ras Nasrani on the Egyptian side meant that any suspension bridge built over the sea would need to be of record-breaking proportions to bridge the gap. ‘Basically it requires two spans, each at a distance of 2,500 metres,’ says Ali. ‘These would easily be the longest in the world, and at the time I thought would be impossible to build.’

But again, luck was on his side. In 2004, Italy unveiled plans for the Straits of Messina bridge linking Sicily with the Italian mainland. Faced with similar physical challenges as the Straits of Tiran, the Messina bridge engineers were able to overcome technological restrictions and come up with a design that would call for the construction of a single-span suspension bridge with a span length of 3,300 metres. The Italian government scrapped the Sicily link last October for financial reasons.