02 March 2011

Bridges news roundup

Corporation Street Footbridge to be repaired
I visited this bridge last year, and noted that it was certainly a bit shabby below the internal deck, but didn't think it was in a dangerous condition.

Transportation officials back deck truss bridge
No great surprise to see that the Columbia River Crossing is likely to go with the cheapest of three options currently on the table. There are still plenty of ways they can refine it aesthetically. See previous post.

Bridge too car
Nobody drove across when I visited the Constitution Bridge in Venice, but it's a surprise to see a city offical quoted as saying "it was never intended to take the weight of a car". Maybe not, but unless bollards prevent access, it should have been designed for a point load at least equal to a car tyre, and for a global load many times in excess of the weight of the car.

Three UK transporter bridges eye World Heritage status
Not to mention the other members of the World Association of Transporter Bridges, too. The locals in Middlesbrough and Newport seem supportive, although there's radio silence from the most neglected of the trio, in Warrington.

Celebrating bridge firm’s global reach
History project examines the bridges built by Patent Shaft Steelworks.

The stone bridges of Epirus
I spotted this via the arches blog, several interesting historic stone arch bridges in Greece.

Rivers - Friend and Foe
The latest episode of the BBC's interesting and often spectacular documentary, Human Planet, included footage of the living bridges of Cherrapunjee, in Meghalaya, India. I featured them here before - bridges built over decades by gradually training aerial tree roots across a river. The programme showed one bridge grower at work, teaching his daughter his skills, and will be online at BBC I-Player for another week yet (probably available in the UK only).

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