I was going to make some joke about not wanting to be the dude driving over the bridge for the load test - entirely presuming there was some more sophisticated way to load test new bridges . . . but no:
They do this to measure load vs deflection and check agreement with models, not to get anywhere close to yield. It's a low end proof check, drive trucks on, measure deflections, drive trucks off, confirm reset of deflection;
The margin on actual load to a permanent set is likely 2-3x what those trucks are carrying. And the margin to actual failure from just this quasi static loading and no external environmental loads (wind)... even more so.
Unless there was some catastrophic fuck up in construction process or calculations, this is completely safe.
Very impressive. The economic angle is a bit confusing. Wonder why China thought this was a worthy investment. Guizhou is a poor part of China, without much international tourism or trade.
Wikipedia indicates it is meant to increase tourism, but even China's most attractive regions (Beijing, Shanghai, Great Wall, Chengdu, Chongqing) are under-visited. I can't imagine that Guizhou will be on foreign tourist's agenda for at least a couple of decades. I think this is an attempt by the local govt. to get more internal tourism. It might work out. We'll see.
> reduces travel time between the two sides of the canyon from two hours to two minutes.
Think of it this way.
Every 2 hours round trip to 2 minutes saves imported fossil. For trucking/freight that's like ~$80 of diesel both ways.
PRC construction workers, though less abundant is cheaper than it ever will be. So best time to build infra is always now, especially one that reduces long tail imports.
Every piece of infra that cuts time (apart from cutting X time) is basically frontloading (domestic) steel and concrete to reduce future oil imports (and emissions). Rough napkin math, 2B rmb construction cossts = ~3m barrels of oil, 2b kms of travel. Shaving off 2hrs (guestimate ~150km) and it pays itself off in imported fuel metric between ~10m trips (for freight , more for passenger). Guizhou has 40m people, if a fraction goes to see the bridge, do some tourist shit (induced demand) it would go a long way to basically subsidize a bridge that cut logistics times and wear on tear for the region.
Yes, but on the other side of the coin is the pending maintenance for all of these projects. You don't just build a road, rail or bridge anad then be done with it. They all require upkeep. If the project itself was a jobs program masquerading as a infra, they'll just let all these fabulous projects rot as it won't make sense to keep them up.
Could not part of its poverty problem be caused by the restrictive travel time and rough terrain that this bridge avoids and could help them become prosperous? If you only build prosperous things for prosperous areas, poorer areas will never get better and could even get worse in comparison as competing becomes even harder.
Its like if you put a dimensional portal across a Great Lake, even if neither side of the portal is currently not very prosperous, the fact that hours of ferry turned into minutes of travel would be a huge boon to both sides and gather attention, investments, and economic benefits that could turn both sides into prosperous cities.
Bridges are expensive to build and to maintain. Maybe people could be helped better other ways; economics is about making choices with limited resources.
> We don't need an economic angle [...] We aren't just cogwheels in an economic system
This kind of thinking is exactly how people go bankrupt. "But I deserve those shoes" "I need a Starbucks to get the day started" "This McMansion would make me happy" "I'd rather commute in a BMW than a Toyota"
Having spent a lot of time in Japan, construction there was a way to provide money to poor regions. You build some big project and pay people good wages and encourage growth of local industry. Not saying it's good or bad but the economics may be secondary to these goals
having crossed one of these superlative Guizhou bridges i can attest to their ability to inspire a sense of wonder like other large-scale human accomplishments.
The Wikipedia page currently also states that it reduces the gorge crossing time from 70 minutes to one minute. So it definitely serves a purpose - whether we each judge that to be worth it is another question.
> Wonder why China thought this was a worthy investment. Guizhou is a poor part of China, without much international tourism or trade.
Could be part of a bit of internal “not leaving anyone behind” propaganda, rather than a concern for national or international trade.
Less cynically, it could be a genuine attempt to help pull the area up economically. Lack of good transport infrastructure can be a major factor among those that hold areas back in that regard.
Apart from what others already mentioned (build and improvements will follow): construction is the main tool the CCP uses in padding economic numbers. And that sectors has not been doing well for a while now, with all the unused ghost metropoles sitting idle. These projects are there not just to improve the local region, but also to keep the construction sector afloat.
.....Are you why we don't have infrastructure in the US?
If you want to uplift a region, you invest into it.
A bridge that cuts travel time by 2 hours increases domestic trade, it can even increase domestic and international tourism long term.
Say what you want but the only region in the world I went that felt like looking forward is Asia, even borderline decaying countries like Japan are clearly looking forward, you can see it from what and how they build, and not just in major centers.
When I first visited Asia 13 years ago, this is the feeling I got too. It's wonderful and intoxicating and new.
It spoke to me so strongly, that I immigrated and started my first business. Not to China, but nearby (Viet Nam). It was a very tough road, I never ended up particularly wealthy, but I have no regrets.
There's quite a few places that have them, but don't prioritize bridge height. The other Himalayan countries (India, Nepal, Pakistan, etc) have similar terrain, but prefer vastly cheaper slope-hugging roads, and tunnels with shorter bridges. Not to mention the danger of winter winds in Himalayan canyons.
The US or Mexico could build a bridge over the deeper bits of their national canyons and hold the undisputed crown, but won't.
It's hilariously depressing to imagine how impossible it would be to build something like that in the US. It's not only the fact that it's an engineering feat—it's also the fact that it was built in such a human-centric way. The cafe at the top, the light show with the water. These things are all superfluous, but make these projects exciting and add novelty which makes these areas just fun places to be. The U.S., in it's current form, could never build any infrastructure projects in such a human-centric way, because, well, we apparently have an inability to build anything at all.
Seriously, when's the last time we built something like this. The only initiative I can even think of is California high speed rail and that project just so happens to be a testament to the absolute antithesis of what I'm proclaiming.
The two longest floating bridges in the world are in Seattle, Washington. The longest, Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, has a mixed use lane for cycling and walking and supposedly took 5 years to construct after construction started (ignoring that it replaced a bridge that existed there and also planning took longer, I'm not sure how to compare that). Seattle also has the world's only floating bridge that has rail on it, Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, which is also the world's 5th longest floating bridge. While not the same exact sort of feat of engineering, it's pretty cool.
If you get a chance, you should read (or listen to) Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses[1] who built much if not most of the parks in New York. He built many of them at a time with Roosevelt was using public money to provide jobs for people thrown out of work during the Great Depression. These public works projects are often scorned by today's electorate.
But perhaps more importantly, getting insights into how the government building things gives the people who can grant contracts tremendous political leverage and power. It is remarkable to see that what he built was definitely good for New Yorkers (although as the book points out, really for rich and white New Yorkers) and the distortions they caused in the political machine caused some people serious grief from loss of property to loss of their entire livelihood.
Authoritarian systems can operate like that but it comes at a tremendous cost.
And it’s amazing that this got built in only 3 years! I can’t imagine anything this substantial being built that fast in the US. I can’t think of any examples either but I’d be happy to see some that anyone knows of.
Visiting China will shake your world view as a westerner. It did mine.
I’m still grateful at a personal level to live in a democracy, but I’m not as certain as I used to be that it’s the only way to run a country that benefits the people.
The infrastructure is incredible yes, but the complete lack of fear on the streets, and the positive consequences of that, are something to behold. Women are not afraid to walk home alone at 2am. People young and old dance together in the street. You never feel on your guard, at all.
They haven’t completely eradicated poverty, but they seem to be giving it a real go. In one very rural area I saw an elderly couple living in a rundown shack, but they had a bunch of modern medical equipment, provided to them for free by the state.
Going to need a business case that translates to value, sorry. Common sentiment, apparently, is that our postal service must generate profit. Clown show.
I really don't understand all the hyperbole around this bridge. It's a suspension bridge, so the relevant bits are at the pylons, which just happen to be on either side of a huge canyon. It clocks in at #14 on Wikipedia's list of longest suspension bridges, with a main span that is 603 meters shorter (2023 meters vs 1420) than the longest.
More interestingly, to me at least, is the fact that 31 of the longest 50 are all in China (as are all but two of the 24 in the "under construction or planned").
> The 2,890-metre-long structure, which took more than three years to complete, reduces travel time between the two sides of the canyon from two hours to two minutes.
Pretty impressive. I feel like things in the US take a lot longer and cost a lot more. The prime example is the second avenue subway extension which has been planned since 1920. But I just searched for a few significant bridges like the Gordie Howe bridge which took about 7 years and 6.4bn Canadian (connects US and Canada). And this bridge which seems a lot more of an engineering feat took 3 years and 8 months and cost between $280 to $292 million
Chinese civil engineers, and engineering orgs, are good because they get a lot of practice.
In the West, and especially in the US, individuals and orgs don't get practice, so when they finally do get a new contract they have to stumble around for 5-10 years figuring out all the institutional knowledge that was lost.
By the time they figure it out, the project is over budget, so it gets canceled, and then it's 20 years until the next half-hearted attempt. Lather rinse repeat.
At root, a lot of this stems from a "managerial" mindset in which people and skills can simply be "reallocated" on a dime. They can't. You can't uproot trees all the time. You plant one and then it grows over multiple human lifetimes.
>> The 2,890-metre-long structure, which took more than three years to complete, reduces travel time between the two sides of the canyon from two hours to two minutes.
The construction timeline and travel improvement are comparable to the New River Gorge bridge, which was completed in the US in ~50yr ago back when systems were structured to and the people who ran them actually were capable of producing results.
Freakonomics just had an episode about how China is run by engineers, who get things done, while the US is run by lawyers, who prevent things from getting done.
This is the central thesis of Ezra Klein's "Abundance" book. Basically, things like this (or high speed rail, or public housing) don't get built in the USA because the government has hamstrung itself with so many rules and regulations that it becomes prohibitively expensive and/or tied up in lawsuits.
Places like China, for better or worse, are not burdened with the problem of making sure every constituency is accommodated.
As a bridge Carpenter, you are correct. I have never seen a construction project of that size for that price completed in that amount of time in the USA. Not even close. I've done projects that are worth over 20 billion today. I've done projects as small as a sidewalk repair. There's no way you can turn out that scope of work for that price at that scale in America it's not even close. They have to be lying about the budget there's no way.
> I really don't understand all the hyperbole around this bridge. It's a suspension bridge, so the relevant bits are at the pylons
I understand what you're saying, but the experience is quite different for the people driving over it compared to a bridge where it isn't a 2000 foot drop.
I think the point being made is that if you followed two ridgelines that make up a valley up to a common summit you could just jam a plank in there. You've got the world's highest bridge. It's only 4 ft long, but it is technically a bridge.
I'd be more interested to know how they raised individual components into place. But I presume they just started with small cables, then used those to raise larger ones into place over time.
All I'm seeing is fairly straightforward fact-based announcements. "The tallest bridge has opened - here it is." If that doesn't interest you, fine... but the reports are not hyperbole.
This project is beautiful. This is an incredible work of art. It might not be the longest, but have you ever tried to pull cable over 2,000 ft hole? Have you ever seen what it takes to actually do those columns? The work looks nice very nice design. It fits with the landscape very well. And the fact that it cost only 140 million is an incredible. For a comparison if you look up one of the bridges I did. We spent 280 million on this
We spent 280 million on this
Years ago I remember reading about an economist who stated something like, "the best way to stimulate an economy is to pay people to dig holes and then fill them in." (I wish I remember who said that.)
In modern times, that translates to paying people to build roads and bridges. Why pay people to sit on their butts and eat bon-bons when you can pay them to get something of value?
In more tangible terms, building infrastructure does elevate peoples' situations.
I feel like the metric needs to be "greatest distance of road from solid ground" or "greatest distance from linear interpolation between ground attachment points".
About 6 hours ago, I watched a video of this from a motorcycle Youtuber who crawled down a sketchy, enclosed, temporary ladder into an unfinished visitor area.
There will be a place for people to run on a track on the outside (with an above harness), bungee jumping, misting rainbow effect sprayers, and visitor's areas underneath and in the top of one of the towers.
The team of engineers who developed this are also quite young.
Readit News
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/load-testing...
The margin on actual load to a permanent set is likely 2-3x what those trucks are carrying. And the margin to actual failure from just this quasi static loading and no external environmental loads (wind)... even more so.
Unless there was some catastrophic fuck up in construction process or calculations, this is completely safe.
https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/u3dqja/how...
Wikipedia indicates it is meant to increase tourism, but even China's most attractive regions (Beijing, Shanghai, Great Wall, Chengdu, Chongqing) are under-visited. I can't imagine that Guizhou will be on foreign tourist's agenda for at least a couple of decades. I think this is an attempt by the local govt. to get more internal tourism. It might work out. We'll see.
Think of it this way.
Every 2 hours round trip to 2 minutes saves imported fossil. For trucking/freight that's like ~$80 of diesel both ways.
PRC construction workers, though less abundant is cheaper than it ever will be. So best time to build infra is always now, especially one that reduces long tail imports.
Every piece of infra that cuts time (apart from cutting X time) is basically frontloading (domestic) steel and concrete to reduce future oil imports (and emissions). Rough napkin math, 2B rmb construction cossts = ~3m barrels of oil, 2b kms of travel. Shaving off 2hrs (guestimate ~150km) and it pays itself off in imported fuel metric between ~10m trips (for freight , more for passenger). Guizhou has 40m people, if a fraction goes to see the bridge, do some tourist shit (induced demand) it would go a long way to basically subsidize a bridge that cut logistics times and wear on tear for the region.
Like planting trees, now is the second best time to build infrastructure. The best time is a decade or two or more ago.
What about maintenance costs?
Its like if you put a dimensional portal across a Great Lake, even if neither side of the portal is currently not very prosperous, the fact that hours of ferry turned into minutes of travel would be a huge boon to both sides and gather attention, investments, and economic benefits that could turn both sides into prosperous cities.
We don't need an economic angle to build great things that help people.
It's a bridge, it's meant to be a shortcut from point A to B.
We aren't just cogwheels in an economic system, there's more to life and progress as humans.
This kind of thinking is exactly how people go bankrupt. "But I deserve those shoes" "I need a Starbucks to get the day started" "This McMansion would make me happy" "I'd rather commute in a BMW than a Toyota"
Deleted Comment
Look at Schenzen in the 70s... If you want your country to move forward you need infrastructure, otherwise poor parts stay poor
American mindset
I mean... that's exactly the reason?
Government funds get used to improve poorer regions to spread development. Improving transport links is a good way to do that
Plus it connects the country, which helps long-term stability
Think of these as more of interstate highways kind of projects
Could be part of a bit of internal “not leaving anyone behind” propaganda, rather than a concern for national or international trade.
Less cynically, it could be a genuine attempt to help pull the area up economically. Lack of good transport infrastructure can be a major factor among those that hold areas back in that regard.
Nations, companies, etc., build these things to "show off." It's nothing new, the Babylonians, Sumerians, and Egyptians did it.
If you want to uplift a region, you invest into it. A bridge that cuts travel time by 2 hours increases domestic trade, it can even increase domestic and international tourism long term.
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_bridges
Say what you want but the only region in the world I went that felt like looking forward is Asia, even borderline decaying countries like Japan are clearly looking forward, you can see it from what and how they build, and not just in major centers.
It spoke to me so strongly, that I immigrated and started my first business. Not to China, but nearby (Viet Nam). It was a very tough road, I never ended up particularly wealthy, but I have no regrets.
Dead Comment
The US or Mexico could build a bridge over the deeper bits of their national canyons and hold the undisputed crown, but won't.
Seriously, when's the last time we built something like this. The only initiative I can even think of is California high speed rail and that project just so happens to be a testament to the absolute antithesis of what I'm proclaiming.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Point_Floating_Bri...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_V._Murrow_Memorial_Bri...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_M._Hadley_Memorial_Bri...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penobscot_Narrows_Bridge_and...
One end has an observation deck, built just for fun! It’s on the slower, non I-95 route up through Maine to Bar Harbor / Acadia National Park.
But perhaps more importantly, getting insights into how the government building things gives the people who can grant contracts tremendous political leverage and power. It is remarkable to see that what he built was definitely good for New Yorkers (although as the book points out, really for rich and white New Yorkers) and the distortions they caused in the political machine caused some people serious grief from loss of property to loss of their entire livelihood.
Authoritarian systems can operate like that but it comes at a tremendous cost.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker
I’m still grateful at a personal level to live in a democracy, but I’m not as certain as I used to be that it’s the only way to run a country that benefits the people.
The infrastructure is incredible yes, but the complete lack of fear on the streets, and the positive consequences of that, are something to behold. Women are not afraid to walk home alone at 2am. People young and old dance together in the street. You never feel on your guard, at all.
They haven’t completely eradicated poverty, but they seem to be giving it a real go. In one very rural area I saw an elderly couple living in a rundown shack, but they had a bunch of modern medical equipment, provided to them for free by the state.
Easy to check: look up Wikipedia's "List of highest bridges", and sort by date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_bridges#Comple...
More interestingly, to me at least, is the fact that 31 of the longest 50 are all in China (as are all but two of the 24 in the "under construction or planned").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_suspension_bri...
> The 2,890-metre-long structure, which took more than three years to complete, reduces travel time between the two sides of the canyon from two hours to two minutes.
Pretty impressive. I feel like things in the US take a lot longer and cost a lot more. The prime example is the second avenue subway extension which has been planned since 1920. But I just searched for a few significant bridges like the Gordie Howe bridge which took about 7 years and 6.4bn Canadian (connects US and Canada). And this bridge which seems a lot more of an engineering feat took 3 years and 8 months and cost between $280 to $292 million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordie_Howe_International_Brid...
https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3553875/the-new-tallest-...
In the West, and especially in the US, individuals and orgs don't get practice, so when they finally do get a new contract they have to stumble around for 5-10 years figuring out all the institutional knowledge that was lost.
By the time they figure it out, the project is over budget, so it gets canceled, and then it's 20 years until the next half-hearted attempt. Lather rinse repeat.
At root, a lot of this stems from a "managerial" mindset in which people and skills can simply be "reallocated" on a dime. They can't. You can't uproot trees all the time. You plant one and then it grows over multiple human lifetimes.
The construction timeline and travel improvement are comparable to the New River Gorge bridge, which was completed in the US in ~50yr ago back when systems were structured to and the people who ran them actually were capable of producing results.
Places like China, for better or worse, are not burdened with the problem of making sure every constituency is accommodated.
I understand what you're saying, but the experience is quite different for the people driving over it compared to a bridge where it isn't a 2000 foot drop.
I'd be more interested to know how they raised individual components into place. But I presume they just started with small cables, then used those to raise larger ones into place over time.
All I'm seeing is fairly straightforward fact-based announcements. "The tallest bridge has opened - here it is." If that doesn't interest you, fine... but the reports are not hyperbole.
This project is beautiful. This is an incredible work of art. It might not be the longest, but have you ever tried to pull cable over 2,000 ft hole? Have you ever seen what it takes to actually do those columns? The work looks nice very nice design. It fits with the landscape very well. And the fact that it cost only 140 million is an incredible. For a comparison if you look up one of the bridges I did. We spent 280 million on this We spent 280 million on this
I-91 Brattleboro Bridge | FIGG Bridge Group https://share.google/LKxgk1aEWh9gSIGhD
In modern times, that translates to paying people to build roads and bridges. Why pay people to sit on their butts and eat bon-bons when you can pay them to get something of value?
In more tangible terms, building infrastructure does elevate peoples' situations.
Dead Comment
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/world%E2%80%99s-tallest...
There will be a place for people to run on a track on the outside (with an above harness), bungee jumping, misting rainbow effect sprayers, and visitor's areas underneath and in the top of one of the towers.
The team of engineers who developed this are also quite young.
https://youtu.be/sm5kLw54uVA