This was an interesting, very long, read! They say of those 25,000 daily trips, most shifted to cycling, walking and public transport, and some moved to other bridges. And then another 9,000 or so were replaced by alternatives that were just better... people tried new transport modes and often found they were better. They do say the closure has created genuine hardship for specific groups.
Not disagreeing with the author's conclusion, but the price comparison to the original struck me as a bit odd.
Ceteris paribus, building the exact same bridge will result in the exact same failure. Some of the additional cost is precisely to avoid the present scenario repeating itself in the future.
How big that addition represents and how effective it is up for debate, but asking for a better bridge at inflation adjusted price is not a. apples to apples comparison.
A few people I know had moved to houses on one side of the bridge for easy access to schools and jobs on the other side, and were hit hard by the closure.
Their commute times skyrocketed to go to the next Thames crossing.
I think the author was a bit too confident in their farming out of research to Claude. For instance, the claim that "at least 9 Chinese bridges have been built that would span the English Channel" is obviously false.
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Railway viaducts (built mostly over land):
- Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge
- Tianjin Grand Bridge
- Cangde Grand Bridge
- Weinan Weihe Grand Bridge
- Beijing Grand Bridge
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Not actually long enough to span the channel (excluding access roads etc.):
- Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (main bridge is 30km)
- Jiaozhou Bay Bridge (all three legs combined total 26 km over water)
- Runyang Yangtze River Bridge (total length of two-bridge complex is 7.2 km)
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Could actually span the channel (setting aside differences in water depth and whatnot):
- Hangzhou Bay Bridge
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Not to say all of these projects are not extremely impressive, or that the article doesn't have a point. But making claims like this undermines the author's credibility, at least in my eyes.
With the 250M price tag I really keep thinking how we in the west just accepted such a massive cost for infrastructure development, especially considering the cost of living has gone down and the Victorians typically built this things by hand.
A couple interesting things I've come across over the years:
1. Western politics seems tragically reactionary and concerned with short-term issues. "Boring" stuff like infrastructure maintenance gets set aside. Deferred maintenance results in a superlinear increased expense: deferring $1 of maintenance today will cost you >$1 in the future (in real terms, accounting for inflation).
2. Some nations massively spend on some infrastructure with results little better than others.
This is an automated AI slop substack that somehow got boosted onto the HN front page - third one of these I've seen in the last 2 months, the AI spam is getting better.
It's got nothing to do with anything, it's AI written slop, and the author is farming clickbait topics and articles with no coherent theme or perspective.
What is funny is that we can easily guess that the "blocked bridge" for car might look "harmless", but it is probably compounding on the cost and difficulty to do anything. And that it is probably similar small things that resulted in the current situation.
For example, restoration of a church or school nearby was maybe costing like 5 millions pounds, and will now cost 5.5 millions because construction material, workers, trucks and tractor take that much longer to reach and leave the place having to take deviation now that the bridge is not available anymore.
> Six years later, Hammersmith Bridge remains closed to vehicles. The solution proposed by local authorities costs £250m and has no funding.
If this is not a failure of Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, then who? Where I grew up, new bridges were paid for by tolls until the building cost was paid then taxes covered occasional maintenance.
17 comments
[ 0.54 ms ] story [ 45.8 ms ] threadCeteris paribus, building the exact same bridge will result in the exact same failure. Some of the additional cost is precisely to avoid the present scenario repeating itself in the future.
How big that addition represents and how effective it is up for debate, but asking for a better bridge at inflation adjusted price is not a. apples to apples comparison.
Their commute times skyrocketed to go to the next Thames crossing.
=
Railway viaducts (built mostly over land):
- Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge
- Tianjin Grand Bridge
- Cangde Grand Bridge
- Weinan Weihe Grand Bridge
- Beijing Grand Bridge
=
Not actually long enough to span the channel (excluding access roads etc.):
- Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (main bridge is 30km)
- Jiaozhou Bay Bridge (all three legs combined total 26 km over water)
- Runyang Yangtze River Bridge (total length of two-bridge complex is 7.2 km)
=
Could actually span the channel (setting aside differences in water depth and whatnot):
- Hangzhou Bay Bridge
=
Not to say all of these projects are not extremely impressive, or that the article doesn't have a point. But making claims like this undermines the author's credibility, at least in my eyes.
1. Western politics seems tragically reactionary and concerned with short-term issues. "Boring" stuff like infrastructure maintenance gets set aside. Deferred maintenance results in a superlinear increased expense: deferring $1 of maintenance today will cost you >$1 in the future (in real terms, accounting for inflation).
2. Some nations massively spend on some infrastructure with results little better than others.
This isn't April 1st is it? Just contract the Chinese to fix it and it'll be done in a few months.
It's got nothing to do with anything, it's AI written slop, and the author is farming clickbait topics and articles with no coherent theme or perspective.
> Paris, 15th April 2019, 6:43pm.
> Inside the ancient cathedral all is quiet.
The fire started during the mass, so not fully silent. And a first fire alarm had already been sounded 20 min earlier.
For example, restoration of a church or school nearby was maybe costing like 5 millions pounds, and will now cost 5.5 millions because construction material, workers, trucks and tractor take that much longer to reach and leave the place having to take deviation now that the bridge is not available anymore.
And now I see it's AI slop. Great.
If this is not a failure of Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, then who? Where I grew up, new bridges were paid for by tolls until the building cost was paid then taxes covered occasional maintenance.