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Posted on 05/29/2004 11:32:48 PM PDT by freedom44
Construction workers in southern France have connected the last link in the world's highest road bridge. The bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains will carry vehicles across a 2.5km (1.5 miles) valley at a height of 270m (885ft).
When finished, the highest pillar will stand at just over 340m (1,115ft) tall.
The Millau bridge is expected to open for traffic by the end of the year, completing a new motorway link between Paris and the Mediterranean.
Once its pylons and giant suspension cables are in place, the structure will be higher than the Eiffel Tower, which reaches 343m.
'Heroic and extraordinary'
Workers on either side of the bridge shook hands and opened bottles of champagne after the final section was lowered into place on Friday afternoon, AFP news agency reported.
It is being constructed by Eiffage, the company that built the Eiffel Tower, and will have taken three-and-a-half years to complete.
The company has shouldered the 260m euro construction cost ($300m) in return for the right to collect receipts from a bridge toll for 75 years.
Like Concorde and the Channel Tunnel, the bridge is Franco-British. The world-renowned architect Norman Foster is behind the design.
"I think it's heroic, it's extraordinary," he told BBC News Online after a visit to the site late last year.
"To have discussions, conversations, studies and models and then to see that being translated into reality in this landscape is an extraordinary experience and I think it touches everyone."
The project was due to take three years, but weather conditions put work on the bridge behind schedule.
The heat wave over last year's summer meant some of the welding could not be done, and over the previous winter it was so cold some work had to be halted.
That's what I was thinking too. From the picture it appears they could have used a bridge half as long and high.
I wonder how long before it's done in by there friends in the east.
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...and I, for one, would never drive over it. I can't help thinking of a falling ceiling in a certain airport... and that bridge has to stand straight, for a long time!
It is but another example of taking money from those who can't afford it, and giving it to those who can! This bridge probably will cost more than enough to have bought a new Peugeot for everyone in France!
It will not be there when the Roman bridge finally falls!
How many hundreds of valleys like that are traversed on our various interstate highways, but without the spectacular (and spectacularly expensive) 1,000 foot high bridge?? I'd like to read an engineer's analysis of why it was done this way.
Please allow me to finish the sentence for you.
This project shows just how incredible the possibilities of the human mind are when government has limitless resources at hand through confiscation of the largesse of the citizenry.
Good terrorist target.
Nice picture
Oh, Dear
tourist attraction >>$$$
This way they won't need a drawbridge when an aircraft carrier comes down the creek.
If I were a terrorist, that bridge would look very inviting.
Visitez aux Etas Unis. We cross bigger valleys than this on every interstate in every state .... at how you say ... a fraction of the cost. But you know, mes amis, it IS quite beautiful.
And beautifully useless.
If I were a terrorist, that bridge would look very inviting. -cs
You need to remember, this is the French! they are a-hole buddies!
tourist attraction >>$$$
Don't you mean terrorist attraction?
I'm not so sure they will have a terrorist problem. Two semi's might bring it down first. It didn't take anything for the airport building at CDG to collapse. Do they teach new math in France? Wondering minds want to know.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for France?
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