Highest bridge unveiled at more than 2,000ft above ground
(independent.co.uk)48 points by Pete-Codes 4 days ago
48 points by Pete-Codes 4 days ago
I'm not sure about this particular project, but while riding on their high speed trains between various cities, I witnessed a great quantity of tunnels of a variety of lengths. Some of them were very, very long.
China is doing a lot of drilling, based on what I've seen first-hand.
Youtube link for the bridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mytGMsn4wvk
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.
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 was curious about the drone footage mentioned in the article. Here is a link to a video of a fly over.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/world%E2%80%99s-tallest...
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").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_suspension_bri...
> 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.
As someone who doesn't keep up with bridge news, China seems to have a monopoly on incredible new mountain bridges.
China has incredible engineers and architects.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> The economic angle is a bit confusing.
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.
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
> Wonder why China thought this was a worthy investment. Guizhou is a poor part of China
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
That's pretty nuts, they should make a mini documentary on how they made it and all the hurdles they had to overcome and all that jazz.
In China, recently, there was a bridge collapse of one of their tallest bridges. I hope it was an isolated incident and not a lapse in their process or principles.
With a lot of these high bridges they block the view so you barely notice that you are on a bridge.
I’m with you on that. I live in NJ and unfortunately I have to deal with bridges, fear of heights or no.
Takes 3yr to replace a 50ft I beam bridge across a small river where I live, mostly because of unnecessary permitting and process. When you add up all the months here and there for every sign off from every party at each stage it adds up fast.
Unnecessary until it's removed and a bridge collapses. Then it's the incompetent government.
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.
I find it hard to swallow my jealousy of the chinese. It's hard to imagine america collectively accomplishing much of anything in my lifetime.
I knew it was going to be China.
China's infrastructure building is beyond impressive. I always come back to this map of China's high speed rail built in 16 years (2008-2024) [1].
China is actually run by a meritocratic bureaucracy rather than the dumbest of people who do nothing more than sell pardons, run crypto scams, transfer government funds to the wealthiest of people, pander to religious hallucinations and sell out their constituents for board seats and jobs after their political career from the very billionaires that were buying them in office. And no, it's not just one party that does this although the current administration is particularly egregious.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/highspeedrail/comments/1drmc2v/grow...
I, too, am jealous of China's high speed railroads. However, on the whole, China has overbuilt their infrastructure, and that may not look so smart in 40-50 years when the maintenance bills start coming due.
Is it factually true? Because some routes that I’m personally aware of are constantly over booked when it comes to rails. Some, I guess, might be overbuilt, but time will show. I’ll agree on some malls though, but it’s more like private stuff, than government-led initiatives.
> the dumbest of people who do nothing more than sell pardons, run crypto scams, transfer government funds to the wealthiest of people
The irony is they are doing all that on the name of “meritocracy” and their side (the wrong Right) is falling for it and cheering it with both hands :-)
> And no, it's not just one party that does this
There's some very heavy lifting you have to do to make the parties look at all close. If the Democrats had a supermajority for long enough, you would see some real change for the better, because we can actually protest Democrats to get them to do things, while the Republicans will just silence any dissent using US military against its citizens. Unfortunately a Democratic supermajority is unlikely to ever happen again the way things are going now. And this is 100% because how people voted, or didn't vote at all.
Yeah, that's just not true.
The Democratic Party is absolutely complicit in everything going on. The term used is "controlled opposition". With the current government shutdown, I think it's taken the Republicans by surprise that the Democrats have (thus far) actually stood up for something and they really don't know what to do because it so rarely happens.
Like why wasn't this happening with the last debt ceiling increase earlier this year? Particularly because there was a fairly awful amendment in the last CR that ended Congress's ability to end the state of emergency the president could declare to use extraordinary powers. That seems like worth standing up to.
Go back to 2012 or so when Bush's tax cuts were expiring. Harry Reid had the Senate Republicans over a barrel until... Joe Biden got involved and just capitulated for absolutely no reason. And got nothing in return.
The last Senate supermarjority was in Obama's first term. It was fairly brief actually (less than a month) due to people taking sick and Republicans using a frivolous court case to stop Al Franken taking his seat. But there still was one.
Obama's signature legislative accomplishment was the ACA and what did it do? It was a massive giveaway to insurance companies. There was even a proposal to allow people to enrol in Medicare at 55 (instead of 65) which was derailed by Joe Lieberman. Why? United Health Care was an employer in his state (Connecticut).
But here's the dirty little secret. Democrats love nothing more than using the filibuster as an excuse to do nothing. If that fails, use "institutionalism". The filibuster is not a constitutional construct. It is part of the rules of the Senate. Originally you had to stand up and speak for so many hours to filibuster. Now you just raise your hand and say "filibuster".
If you have a majority in the House and Senate and a president in the White House, you can pass whatever you want.
And let's not forget we just had an election cycle where the Democratic Party openly and intentionally chose to materially support a genocide (that they could've stopped at any point with a phone call) rather than win an election at a time they were (rightly) calling their opponent a fascist.
>The Democratic Party is absolutely complicit in everything going on.
The Democrats simply have no power to stop anything going on. If you think they do, then you don't understand how the government works at all.
Every single thing you mention Democrats doing wrong, is because they have tried to compromise. If one side dictates what everyone else should do, you don't get a functioning country, you get a lot of dissent, and you know what - fucking forget it, you're just too lost to explain any of this to.
Have a nice day.
Part of me seeing the record and the whole artificial waterfall gave me a sense that it's not a race anymore, we already lost.
On the other hand...we won the space race and we went to the moon, except only 15 guys or thereabout went and for the rest of us didn't mean anything substantial at all.
Lots of tech was developed and commercialized as a byproduct of the space program. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/20-inventions-we-would...
I think I’m going to visit China soon, to the Pearl River Delta. I want to meet manufacturers and advance a product I am working on, and having lived in the US my entire life, I desperately need to see what it’s like when a country is really trying to build a future.
Rightists are scared of energy sources beyond coal and oil; leftists are scared of information technology that could replace human workers; homeowners are scared to make any physical changes to their neighborhoods and cities because it would "change the neighborhood character"; legislators are scared/incapable of making any fundamental changes to governance because it would be difficult, and can't agree on anything; the president and the average American are scared of anyone and any ideas that don't come from within the country's borders; and for anyone who isn't scared, the cost of enacting change will be a realization that everyone who has skills have either retired or abandoned their trades to become software engineers optimizing ad revenue; and that the young are no longer interested in taking on these challenges because they're doomscrolling TikTok all day; and if they proceed, they will be mired in lawsuits for decades by naysayers; and the financial costs will be 10x the true value paid anywhere else in the world.
Everything is stuck in gridlock in attempt to prevent change, but of course that's futile. There will still be change, it'll just be rust and dryrot and all that ensues. Many would rather see it all crumble than allow progress and risk loss of power and station.
All of this. Everyone in the US is basically afraid of something.
I wonder if two things are massive factors in this:
a) The US is already prosperous. When you have much too lose, your mental trade-offs between gaining something and losing what you have become different.
b) US politics has been dominated by the massive post-war generation. It seems like we drastically stopped building when the boomers had bought their first homes.
Both of these also work for other Western countries that also stopped building.
Travel.
There are two United States. A prosperous nation and a struggling nation. See both.
I’m from a now depressed rural town. When I periodically drive home it gets a little more ramshackle every year. My town had 20 operating dairy farms, now 0. Three industrial facilities, now one, which is now fully automated and employs security guards and guys to load trucks.
The best jobs are police, teachers and logistics people at a nearby distribution center.
I pay my entry engineers in real terms 15% less than I made 30 years ago. Housing is about 30% higher in real terms. Our benefit overhead grows 2x inflation.
Then travel abroad.
Chinese bridge, designed by Chinese engineers, built by Chinese workers, captured with (we assume) a Chinese drone.
What a spectacular scene.
I am proud on behalf of all the people who worked together to achieve this.
A confident, unified people under competent leadership can accomplish great things. I wish the Chinese continued success and hope their example eventually spurs the development of a new ruling class in the West.
Especially when dissent is ruthlessly crushed and any record of it is erased.
Did this part concern anyone else?
> Last month, a team of engineers deployed 96 trucks to strategic points across the bridge to recreate heavy traffic conditions to ensure it would not buckle.
Reminds me of this https://featureassets.gocomics.com/assets/74c15210deb9013171...
I wouldn’t want to be one of those truck drivers, I’ll say that much. Maybe they were remotely operated.
Note: highest, not tallest. Highest should technically be the building here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole which is more than 12km above ground, that is to say 12km high. Or, rather, was, having been destroyed since. There’s other boreholes too though.
The Kola boreholes are 22 centimeters (9 inches) in diameter, that building is not a bridge in any way, shape, or form.
One of these days I’ll get a model railroad bridge and put it over a borehole. But that day shan’t be today because arguing technicalities on HN seems easier :)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_bridges vs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_bridges
If you set up a model train bridge over the Kola borehole, I’ll concede and admit it’s a bridge ;)
I learned something by writing my response, I didn’t know how large the Kola boreholes were and now I do!
Also, thanks for clarifying the distinction between highest and tallest, the span on the Chinese bridge is 2000’ above the ground at certain points but the towers themselves are only 860 feet tall, other bridges have taller towers/pillars but the deck height isn’t as high as this Chinese one.
Is China drilling less than Switzerland/Austria/France, or are they mixing bridges and tunnels, and the tunnels don't get press releases?