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Highest Bridge in the World Nearing Completion
An anonymous reader writes "A weekend cookie for all engineering geeks out here. The central span of the Millau bridge (270 meters or 886 ft) has been completed!" The photo is awesome.
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I wonder how wide those pylons are? They look like they are a decent width, but of course it's tough to tell with that perspective.
Why did they build this bridge? That looks like a perfectly nice valley down there, easy to push a road through, and at 1/100th the cost and no where near the danger.
Is this a penis boast ("I've got the biggest bridge!"), an environment issue ("No automobiles in this valley!"), an ownership issue, what??
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I drove through Millau a few weeks ago, and it is one mother-hubbard of a bridge. I didn't know it was the tallest. Millau is a really bad bottleneck and the existing road is strangled by the lorries which must use it.
Yes it does rather look "stuck-on" to the scenery. I'm not sure why they couldn't just build a by-pass folowing the contours rather than the whopping bridge. That's my tax money paying for that.
Road Traffic Tech.com
I've been at Milau last summer, and I must say that bridge is quite spectacular, also the way it was built. During the dozen days I was there, you could see the daily progress they made as the cranes moved and the whole bridge was pushed across the pillars little by little. Amazing bridgebuilding technology, really.
And maybe it's not evident from the pictures, but the bridge does make some sense when you look at the landscape close-up.
And it's really big. Standing under the pillars makes it look very, very intimidating.
If you look at the picture, it looks as if there's a bit of a dip from where the camera is to the next span.
Did they screw up the alignment a bit then hack it to get it to work? How do they do that anyway?
at the New River Gorge bridge in West Virginia, USA. It's legal to jump off that bridge exactly one day per year (known, appropriately enough, as bridge day). It's not a bad way to introduce yourself to base jumping legally... jail time sucks.
Incidently, it's only ten feet shorter than the bridge mentioned in the article (but has a much smaller landing area... people jumping the New River Gorge bridge should have good canopy control skills... it might be tough for a rookie parachutist). The only more-difficult famous base jump landing I know of is Angel Falls... there's a tiny clearing in the jungle you have to hit, or you're in the trees.
I got invited to do my first base jump when I was a low-time skydiver (only had 13 jumps under my belt) it involved breaking-and-entering, climbing an antenna at night, jumping from said antenna, and avoiding the guy wires... needless to say, I declined. I like adrenaline as much as the next guy, but there's something to be said for living to jump another day...
Jump smart... you'll live longer.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Since long before I was born they have been two ten-foot-wide lanes and pedestrians are not allowed on the bridge because of the danger. Neither are trucks allowed to pass one another because there isn't enough clearance.
The nominal height of this bridge is 130 feet above the river, give or take. It's not nearly as high as the A75 but we get our share of suicide jumpers both off it and the newer, swankier, and busier Greater New Orleans Mississippi River Bridge a few miles to the south (or, as it was renamed after a contest in the 80's, the "Crescent City [not drug] Connection").
You do not get the full thrill of the Huey Long unless you're on it when a TRAIN is also on it. And you really don't get the full thrill unless you are STOPPED IN TRAFFIC while a TRAIN is passing. You see, the H.P.Long is entirely riveted together. There isn't a weld to be found in the entire structure. This means it moves -- a lot. You normally can't tell in a moving vehicle, but people have been known to get seasick in stalled traffic. Especially when a train is passing.
I'm sure the A75 will be no picnic in bad weather, but being that high in bad weather you probably won't even be able to see the ground. What I wonder about is how much the thing will move around with only seven supports and all that wind-catching area.
Being stopped on traffic might be a lot more fun than just having your car slapped around by a gale.
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