Comment by maxglute
> 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.