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.
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.
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.
Your comment would have held true in 2022 or 2015, bolstering your argument that the incumbents cause these issues. Adding the “and no” precondescended statement to the end seems to show your own rumination toward bias.
> 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.
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.
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.
.....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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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").
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".
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.
> 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
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.
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.
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
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 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:
46 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 87.7 ms ] threadLooks like a great spot for BASE jumping!
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...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/world%E2%80%99s-tallest...
> 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...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_bridges
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.
Nations, companies, etc., build these things to "show off." It's nothing new, the Babylonians, Sumerians, and Egyptians did it.
Look at Schenzen in the 70s... If you want your country to move forward you need infrastructure, otherwise poor parts stay poor
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.
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.
What a spectacular scene.
I am proud on behalf of all the people who worked together to achieve this.
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.
Illusions, bombs and coups...
And reality always wins over illusions in the end. China will show that with great joy to the people of the world.
https://youtu.be/glZr4dR4Xyw
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...
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.
> 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 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.
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
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
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/load-testing...