A Visual Tour of the World's Longest Sea Bridge

It only makes sense that the country that brought you the Great Wall of China is now home to the world's longest sea bridge. The 26-mile Jiaozhou Bay bridge, which was built over the course of four years for $1.5 billion, links China's eastern port city of Qingdao to an offshore island, Huangdao, according to theAP (the previous record-holder was the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana). It is supported by more than 5,000 pillars, is expected to carry more than 30,000 cars per day, and opened for traffic on Thursday. China, which is already home to seven of the world's ten lengthiest bridges, according to The Telegraph, plans to finish an even longer sea bridge linking southern Guangdong province with Hong Kong and Macau by 2016. But enough words! A story like this needs visuals.

Here's a photo released by China's Xinhua news agency the day before the Jiaozhou Bay bridge opened:

Reuters gives us another view:

The photos are helpful, of course, but what would it be like to actually drive on this thing? The Telegraphtakes us on a breathtaking aerial tour:

Bandra Worli Sea Link – India’s Civil Marvel

When we talk about moving from western suburbs to islands of Mumbai, the only way out till today was Mahim causeway. But today with the grand opening of Bandra Worli Sea Link Project by Sonia Gandhi would make the life of commuters much more easy. Earlier with the non availability of any other route, the distance of 8 km took nearly 40 minutes but with the opening of this Indian engineering marvel, the distance would be covered in just under 10 minutes.

Talking about the engineering side of this project, these two cable-stayed bridges, one 600-metre-long at Bandra channel and the other twin-tower supported 350-metre-long at the Worli channel are one of its kind in India. This eight lane bridge has a cable stayed tower which is of almost 43 storey building height. The Cable Stay system comprises 2,250 km of high strength galvanized steel wires which support this bulky 20,000 ton structure. Several teams of engineers from Canada, China, Egypt, Switzerland, Britain, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Serbia, Indonesia and the Philippines have worked on the project.

It is built with the cost of more than 1,650 crore and it took 10 years to built it. Construction was marred by litigation from environmentalists and fisherman. But finally it was built with much changes. But it is believed that it would save almost 100 crore per day in form of time and fuel.

Some other facts about Bandra Worli Sea Link

1.The bridge’s lighting is done at a cost of about Rs 9-crore (Rs 90 million) by Bajaj Electricals
2. Bandra-Worli sea link is likely to consume 1,000 KW power a day and this would be supplied by Reliance Power and the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport.
3. It is built as BOT i.e built, operate and transfer. A toll plaza is installed and each commuter has to pay for using this sea link

Here is a video we got hold on youtube. Thanks to our visitor – Sanjana who sent this link to us.

The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel (MMMBT)

The structure is the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel (MMMBT), a 4.6-mile long combination bridge-tunnel system

The MMMBT opened in April 1992 after seven years of construction and a total cost of about $400 million.

Salient features of the bridge are:-

1. It is 4,800 feet long from portal to portal.

2. Built by the immersed sunken tube method

3. The traffic lanes in the tunnel are 13 feet wide, with 2.5-foot-wide ledges on either side of the roadway, and with 16.5 feet of vertical clearance from the roadway to the ceiling.

4. Traffic flow is monitored from a traffic management center where employees keep an eye on operations through 33 closed-circuit television cameras.

5. Seventy-two sensors in the pavement of the tunnel and approach bridges automatically check every 20 seconds for interruptions in traffic flow. In the event of an incident, motorists are advised of alternate routes via 32 electronic message signs activated immediately from the traffic management center.

6. While traveling through the Monitor Merrimac, motorists do not lose their favorite local radio station while in the tunnel. A communications system rebroadcasts all local AM and FM radio stations. In the event of an emergency, tunnel staff can override these broadcasts with emergency information motorists receive through their vehicle’s radio without changing stations.