This is the Yaxi Expressway in southwest China’s Sichuan province. It features some of the highest and longest bridges in the world.
Here’s a little article about it: https://themindcircle.com/yaxi-expressway-traversing-the-clouds/
Side note: am i the only one who finds this crazy scary to look at? I’m sure it’s awesome driving on it, but looking at it from afar it looks wild.
I like how this lets wildlife pass through
Yeah the environmental impacts are less severe when you elevate rail or roads on pillars.
Indeed, more roads should be like this.
This is really cool. I wonder what the calculations were to keep this safe in an earthquake. Must have been some really interesting work.
Yeah. I also wonder how they anchored the piers. The terrain in this area can’t have been easy to work with.
i’ve had people drive in from neighboring [US] states and be absolutely terrified of our urban highway interchanges [texas][many of them also sky-high but not quite this high I don’t think? - for reference, youtube practical engineering-why are texas highway interchanges so tall], imo it (the concern/fear?) is just something you might just be used or unused to
In parts of New York there are similar ones that are crumbling/shut-down and falling on people.
Yeah, those tall interchanges are freaky too. Impressive engineering is awesome to look at no matter where it is in the world.
Rainbow road
Western countries do stuff like this, too. Engineering is amazing the world 'round.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct
The Millau Viaduct is a multispan cable-stayed bridge completed in 2004 across the gorge valley of the Tarn… in Southern France… As of October 2023, it is the tallest bridge in the world, having a structural height of 343 metres (1,125 ft).
Yeah, Millau is very impressive too. It’s also very pretty to look at. The thing about China though is that it builds a lot of these things. Like just look at a list of the world’s highest bridges and viaducts and you’ll see China massively overrepresented, especially at toward the top: https://www.highestbridges.com/wiki/index.php?title=List_of_Highest_International_Bridges%2FPage_1
So yeah, this sort of thing happens in the West also, but it’s not super common, so when it does it feels really special. The Millau viaduct is fairly famous here in Europe. In China it feels like the country is full of this type of infrastructure, so to Chinese people it must feel almost banal.
I am willing to bet that it is fine, and completely safe. Knowing Chinese engineering and Infrastructure, they likely put more factors and thought into designing it than Statesian engineers do in designing a Skyscraper.
I’m sure it’s perfectly safe. It’s just weird to think of a highway being that high up in the air.
Well we have this so who can really say
Yeah but see, the rails are still connected so the train will be fine. It’s just a little saggy in this part when the train goes through.
German engineers are out here playing Poly Bridge in real life, they only had 5 steel beams for this level
This bridge is safely nestled in the water, where bridges belong.
there are some construction projects that instill awe, make you reflect on the hard work it takes to build and the defiance to the natural world it represents. like it really makes you reflect on how the pyramids must have been built versus how we can build things now, and the inherent majesty with our collective talents
anyway those sorts of construction projects are just on every other corner of china lol they really do not give a fuck, if they want a road there by god the road is going there
I’m sure it’s less scary when you realize they also have way better and more frequent maintenance and upkeep there. If this was burgerland this thing would be terrifying. But China actually funds their infrastructure, so I’d have more faith in ANY Chinese bridge then I would the BEST US bridge.
Yeah, i’m not saying it’s not safe, just the thought of a highway being that high up in the air feels…unnatural somehow.
I get why they do it though. You want to minimize elevation changes and avoid doing what roads through mountains usually do which is a lot of winding curves to climb up and down the mountain. That would massively slow down traffic and is way less safe.
My gut feeling says roads should be at ground level if possible but actually that would be bad in this case. If this were at a lower elevation you’d need a lot more tunnels to go through the mountains, and tunnels are vastly more expensive and time consuming to build than viaducts and bridges.
China also loves to elevate not just roads but also its train tracks on viaducts, even when they’re not necessarily dealing with mountainous terrain. You sometimes see very highly elevated railway viaducts in flat, open farmland. And again this intuitively “feels” wrong, but the reasons for this are actually very logical:
Firstly you minimize environmental impacts when you just have to place support pillars instead of an entire road or train track on the ground. You can leave the space below free to be used more or less normally.
Secondly having a road or track elevated protects it from floods, and China has gotten so good at building these that it’s faster and cheaper than an elevated earth embankment.
And lastly, it’s a way to guarantee no animals or people wander onto the tracks and cause accidents.
A lot of these reasons also apply when it comes to highways too, so yeah, logically it makes sense. Structurally it’s probably very well engineered and maintained. And yet despite knowing all that i just look at it and i get this weird feeling that cars just aren’t supposed to be that high up in the air…
actually this is scary to me no matter what? i don’t care how well maintained it is I do not want to be that high up ever
That’s a valid concern
No, I’m with you yeah that does look scary. I’m no engineer but it’s hard to believe these spindles are holding all that concrete.
The road is also wavy, and that probably is factored in. I’d imagine it imparts a significant lateral stability to it, like those wavy brick walls that are only a single layer of bricks thick; they seem like you could just push them over, but you definitely can’t.
it would be so cool to have new bridges and stuff. alas
As it is scary, it is also a marvel of engineering.
