Neatorama » Bridge

Solar Footbridge Produces Excess Power

Miss Cellania — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:49:47 +0000

The Kurilpa Bridge crossing the river into Brisbane, Australia is expected to carry around 36,000 pedestrians every week. The world’s longest solar foot bridge is 1,500 feet long and sports 84 solar panels. The panels produce all the energy the bridge needs for its LED lighting and sends 25% of the power generated back to the city’s electrical grid. Link -via Digg

Group Rope Jumping

Johnny Cat — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:54:27 +0000

Photo by Russos

No, not Double-Dutch, and not quite Bungee jumping. The kids these days and their fads- EnglishRussia has an interesting series of pictures of the group rope-jumping craze sweeping the country.

As illustrated above, a group simultaneously jumps from a bridge (as a train bears down on them), clinging to ropes that swing them up towards the other side. No details on what kind of injuries this involves, but the line tangles don’t look encouraging.

Link

The World's Longest Bridge Will Be 25 Miles Long

John Farrier — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:10:54 +0000

Image: Artist’s Rendering, MENA Infrustructure

The Qatar-Bahrain Friendship Causeway will connect the Persian Gulf states of Qatar and Bahrain over a 40 km causeway. Construction is scheduled to begin next year at a cost of $2.3 billion. The structure will include both a roadway and a railway, and will reduce travel time between the nations to a mere 30 minutes. Once completed it will become the longest bridge in the world, surpassing the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in the U.S., which is 38 km long. At the link, you can view a comparative graphic.

Link via Gizmodo

Chinese Government Covered a Bridge in Butter to Fight Suicides

Alex — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:03:47 +0000

Butter … is there anything it can’t do? Add this to the long list of the awesome things butter can do: in China, they use it to prevent suicides!

Government officials in south-east China have ordered workers to cover a 1,000 ft long steel bridge in butter to prevent citizens from using it to attempt suicide.

All the climbable surfaces on the structure in Guangzhou have been covered in greasy fat to put an end to the spate of people threatening to jump from it, The Sun reports.

Government spokesman Shiu Liang said: "We tried employing guards at both ends but that didn’t work – and we put up special fences and notices asking people not to commit suicide here.

"None of it worked – and so now we have put butter over the bridge and it has worked very well. Nobody can get up there and nobody who tries ever falls."

Link

Group Bridge Jumping

Alex — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 08:48:46 +0000

Photo: russos

There’s an odd fad taking off (jumping off?) in Russia: jumping off a bridge en masse after tethering yourself to a rope! For even more fun, wait till the train is passing by … Link – via kottke

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse "In Color"

Algonkin — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:46:34 +0000

We are all familiar with the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge a.k.a. “The galloping Gertie”, a long suspension bridges in the U.S. state of Washington, which spans accross the Tacoma Narrows between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula. We also know of its demise when on November 7, 1940, at approximately 11:00 AM it became famous for its wind-induced structural collapse that was caught on motion picture film. What is least known about the collapse is that it was also captured in “color”.

Link: Youtube