Comment by ChuckMcM
Youtube link for the bridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mytGMsn4wvk
Youtube link for the bridge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mytGMsn4wvk
The Penobscot Narrows Bridge (opened, 2006) was the first thing that sprang to mind.
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.
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.
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...
> Evergreen Point Floating Bridge
> Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge
I’ve biked and driven across these bridges many times and I’m quite certain I’ve never heard these names until this moment.
> "Seriously, when's the last time we built something like this."
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...
Going to need a business case that translates to value, sorry. Common sentiment, apparently, is that our postal service must generate profit. Clown show.
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.