The Melide causeway crosses across

Lake Lugano __NOTOC__ Lake Lugano ( it, Lago di Lugano or , from la, Ceresius lacus; lmo, Lagh de Lugan) is a glacial lake which is situated on the border between southern Switzerland and northern Italy. The lake, named after the city of Lugano, is situated ...

in the Swiss canton of Ticino, connecting the communities of Melide and Bissone, and provides the only domestic land connection between the southern section of Ticino, around

Mendrisio Mendrisio (; lmo, label= Ticinese, Mendris ) is a municipality in the district of Mendrisio in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. Mendrisio is the seat of the Accademia di Architettura of the university of Italian-speaking Switzerland (U ...

and

Chiasso Chiasso (; lmo, Ciass ) is a municipality in the district of Mendrisio in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. As the southernmost of Switzerland's municipalities, Chiasso is on the border with Italy, in front of Ponte Chiasso (a frazione of Co ...

, and the rest of Switzerland. Today the causeway carries the Gotthard railway, the A2 motorway, and a main road. A bridge within the causeway permits water flow and navigation between the two halves of Lake Lugano. The causeway makes use of a submerged

glacial moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice she ...

, which stretches across the lake reducing its depth to around , as opposed to the lake's maximum depth of . The causeway was designed by Pasquale Lucchini, a self-taught Ticinese civil engineer, who arranged for large quantities of rock to be dumped on top of the moraine to create the causeway. The causeway was built between 1841 and 1847, and opened for road traffic in 1848. The railway was added to the causeway in 1872, and the motorway in 1980.

References

External links

*
{{Lago di Lugano Buildings and structures in Ticino Causeways in Europe Lake Lugano Railway bridges in Switzerland Road bridges in Switzerland