Come See Our Hideous Slab

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 12/17/4 | Mark Morford

[SmithL]

As the world swoons over France's soaring beauty of a bridge, S.F. gets slapped with an eyesore

And did you hear the one about how those gul-dang baguette-sucking antiwar French just completed work on this astounding new bridge, a soaring, airy, delicate thing erected in southern France, and it's all over the international press and the French people are justifiably proud and even the venerable Le Monde has deemed the new Millau bridge a "work of art," and the amazing pictures are being featured everywhere, for good reason?

And you look at the photos and see the breathtakingly elegant architecture (it was built by the same company that did the Eiffel Tower) and you read about the bridge's world-record height and its classy designer, renowned British architect Norman Foster, the man who also designed the Millennium Bridge in London and who believes, crazily, that "works of man should fuse with nature," and his bridge is already being hailed as an instant landmark.

The Millau. Its pillars poke the clouds and its design inspires the spirit and it will surely be a major tourist attraction for decades to come -- a fact that, of course, means little to most Americans, because most red-blooded patriots never venture past the Wal-Mart on the outskirts of their home state. But still.

And if you care at all about industrial design and the splendor of pure function and of humankind's aspirations toward anything resembling ideals of grace and simplicity and beauty, you take one look and you can only go, whoa.

And then you get to spin right around just in time to have your face slapped by Arnold Schwarzenegger, a giant slab of a B-grade actor and C-grade politician...

[R. Scott]

It should be noted that it is a common practice of Palestinian terrorists to send children to both test the security arrrangements in outposts and at times even place explosive charges.

I guess they could gussy up “The Slab” with unnecessary and expensive towers and gossamer wires. Then the San Franciscans could be just like the French.

[2Jedismom]

A half-marathon? I've run a few half-marathons and one marathon.

Actually, I wouldn't mind running across...It's being in the CAR that bothers me.

Remember when the I-40 bridge collapsed here in Oklahoma? THAT is my worst fear...those poor people just drove right off into the water.

[SlowBoat407]

That's because the section you're showing is actually at Cape Charles, on the Eastern Shore (although the Virginia Beach side looks very much like it, except with houses all over the place). :-P

[ArrogantBustard]

I just cleaned up his HTML. There was a space between the first "<" and the "img src=", and then he had the URL in double quote marks ...

One thing I love about Virginia is our bridges. Gotta admit MD has a few nice ones, too. Here's the Gov. Harry Nice Memorial Bridge, spanning the Potomac way downstream from Washington.

[R. Scott]

The last thing on my mind while im crawling along in SF traffic is how beautiful the bridge is.

WHAT! You don’t want drivers distracted by gazing at the beauty of the bridge?

[Corin Stormhands]

Is that where Route 301 crosses?

[ArrogantBustard]

No ... It was a 10K, which included crossing the William Preston Lane (Bay) Bridge in Annapolis, MD. Real struggle on the way up, breeze on the way down. That thing is steep

[Robert A Cook PE]

Coronado bridge in San Diego across the bay is prettier.

[R. Scott]

I thought he want ranting about some "Hideous Slob"

You just had to bring up Michael Moore, didn’t you.

[MississippiMan]

I loathe the french as much as anyone, but their new bridge is indeed gorgeous.

MM

[bmwcyle]

We use to ping the tunnel on the way out to test out sub active sonar.

[mvpel]

The problem is that the bayarrheans want the rest of the State of California to pay a large portion of the cost of this monument to their prodigious vanity.

Typical of leftists.

[2Jedismom]

Every time we crossed over that Narrows bridge, I was just waiting for someone to go burzurk and hit us and throw us into the water.

I just knew it was gonna happen any minute. But I could handle it for a minute or two. I don't think I could handle it on a long bridge, unmedicated.

[ArrogantBustard]

Yep.

Here's the George P. Coleman Bridge, US 17 across the York River, Yorktown VA.

[SlowBoat407]

There's an excellent chronicle of the CBBT's construction on Modern Marvels once in a while. I live not too far from it and drive across it fairly often. It's wonderful to be in the middle of it and not see land on either side. I stood on the first island in early 2003 and watched the Navy deploying for Iraq through there. Beautiful sight.

[k2blader]

Most bridges are dang ugly.

[woofie]