Posted on 12/17/2004 7:47:42 AM PST by SmithL
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...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
That was pretty amazing when they rebuilt that one.
Not in more than 25 years, IIRC. How much is it now?
I think they should call it the Full Retreat Express Lane!
I don't like bridges either ... or long spanned freeway overpasses (we have a lot of those here in L.A.). I also hold my breath going through tunnels ... and waiting at stoplights under freeway overpasses.
Yeah, but he called Americans uneducated hicks by the third.
Corin Stormhands says its 10 bucks each way, if thats a fact it hasn't gone up very much in the last 10 years or so. I think that is pretty amazing.
It's just that any minute something catastrophic is gonna happen and I'm gonna be in the big thick middle of it! Bridges leave you with precious little room to get outta the way, you know?
Heh heh! I laugh at myself, but it's how I honestly feel.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel isn't that bad if you're scared of heights like I am. The tunnel segments might get you if you're claustrophobic, but the bridge itself is not all that high. The one time I drove it I actually got to see an Atlantic Fleet aircraft carrier steaming out to sea, it was neat.
Now if you want scary bridges, come to beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. There are two bridges over the Cooper River, and the oldest was built in the '30s or '40s--two lanes. They are HIGH, to allow ship traffic to the port, and well, let's just say the older of the two gives you a view of the water waaaaaaaaay below...THROUGH THE BRIDGE DECKING. The one time I drove the older bridge, I was white-knuckled all the way across, trying not to look at the flimsy rusty guardrails, with my wife (the lovely and talented Foxfire4) commenting, "Oooh, the boats look so SMALL from up here!"
I drive the adjoining and slightly better three-lane bridge if at all possible. Fortunately the two old bridges will be replaced with a brand-new--and even higher--eight-lane bridge come this spring.
And as for that French bridge, what's the problem. It's only a thousand feet off the ground at the highest point... :)
}:-)4
Does your wife POINT while driving over the bridge? My husband does and I've nearly had a heart attack with him driving and pointing out a barge or a boat down below...
Ohhhhh yeah, she sure does. And I'm sure she'll do it the first time we go over the new Ravenel Bridge that's replacing those old Grace and Pearman bridges in Charleston. Of course, I usually cross her up by getting in the insidemost lane so I can't see over the edge as easily. :)
BTW, what somebody said about the US 50 Bay Bridge (as opposed to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel pic that set this whole subthread off) is true. The Bay Bridge is waaaaay up there. What's worse when you're trying to get to the beaches around Ocean City, MD, that way is that there's a drawbridge a few miles before it, at Kent Narrows, I think. Nothing like being stalled in a three-mile line of traffic at that drawbridge knowing that you'll soon be two hundred feet in the air...and all the drivers around you are hacked-off, homicidal DC drivers in a hurry to get to the beach so they can start drinking. Fun fun. }:-)4
One more bridge I've always wanted to force myself to drive over...US 19 over the New River Gorge in West Virginia. It's a thousand feet from the deck to the river at the highest point. It's so tall that once a year in the fall, they shut the highway down and hold a bungee- and base-jumping festival--people parachute off the dang thing. I think I could handle that flat-decked kind of bridge easier than one of those long bridges over an open stretch of water, the kind that just climb and climb and climb.
}:-)4
HAH! Some people's EXPERIENCES are other people's NIGHTMARES!
Projects supported by Democrats are always pleasing to the eye and financially sound. Why, just look at Boston's Big Dig (sarcasm).
It's actually just short of 24 miles, which is plenty long enough. I've never had problems with the Lake Pontchatrain Causeway - it's low, flat and straight (just like many miles of I-10 to the west of the New Orleans area).
Now, the Huey P. Long Bridge across the Mississippi River... that one will give me the cold sweats. There's also a fairly new cable suspension bridge a few miles upriver of New Orleans; I swear you can feel the damned thing moving when it's windy.
Well, in bridges, overpasses,, tunnels, et al ... I remind myself I'm living smack dab on the center of the San Andreas fault. :(
There's one not too far from here just out from Pottsville, Tennessee that spans the Duck River. Are ya'll impressed yet?
Yep, that's the one, that bridge that crosses the Chesapeake at Annapolis. Each one is really narrow (just 2 lanes?), and you're REALLY high up. You look down out your side window, and it just falls right off into the abyss at about your arm's length.
Freaked out the wife big time.
That's 'cause she's too busy blaming Arnold...
I also sent this idiot an email this morning (below)> Don't forget, this is the "cantelever" section of the bridge....the one that connects Oakland to Angel Island....the ugly one that had a section collapse in the 89 Loma Prieta quake. It can't be much more butt-ugly than it is already... My message:
"Do you really blame this bridge debacle on Arnold and "Bushco"? I, like MANY others, grew up in the Bay Area but simply could not afford to live there once out of college. What you all have done to our beautiful home is a disgrace and to blame it on Arnold (Sac) or "Bushco" (Wash DC) is absurd!
If you want to blame the state's fiscal irresponsibility and current deficit situation on anyone, why in God's name would you not pin it on the one man who is clearly to blame: YOUR pick for Gov, the incredibly incompetent Gray Davis. Arnold is simply trying to keep you folks in the Bay Area, for whom (by definition) money is NEVER an object, to keep this project from becoming the "Heaven's Gate" of bridge building.
$300 million may not sound like much for someone who lives in an area where a 2 bedroom fixer-upper goes for over $500K, but for the rest of us trying to exist in this state that wants nothing but extremely rich (who can afford to live here) and the extremely poor (to serve their meals or clean their pools) it is a BIG deal.
For the millions of former Bay Area residents who used to look back at our stomping grounds with fond reminiscence, YOU that live there now have turned it into the laughing stock of the rest of the country and are working on the world now. And, like the good Demonrats that you are, you try to blame all YOUR problems on someone else.
You and your article are the reason San Francisco is going into the toilet but quick. Thanks for nothing."
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