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World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
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gerrycomo
09/27/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
Of course, all petro-dollar financed.
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Geisrud
09/28/09

@gerrycomo: Assuming you're correct; what's wrong with selling a resource you own to people willing to pay for it?
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OCEntertainment
09/26/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
Errr, 40 km would be closer to 25 miles than 13. Which might explain why it says that it would take a human 9 hours to walk the distance when the average human walk speed is 2-3 mph. Meaning it would take around 4-6 hours.
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ninjagin
09/26/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
Wow. 3 billion dollars for a bridge that's 12,294 smoots long (give or take a half-smoot). Seems kind of cheap to me, at $244,021 per smoot. I mean, come on, one smoot has got to be more costly than that, these days. To make a comparison, the Harvard Bridge is only 364.4 smoots long, +/- an ear. If I imagine thirty-three and a quarter Harvard Bridges, end-to-end, -=linking Quatar and Bahrain=-, it would have to be more costly than a cool three billion. I mean, maybe the price is kind of a flat rate, but can you imagine how much they jack up the price of the twelve thousand two hundred and ninety-fifth smoot? My gut's telling me that they have to price the whole thing at the cost of the hypothetical last smoot, and if they did, it would be a lot more than $245,000.
Just sayin'.
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dfp3050
09/26/09

@ninjagin: darn, I wanted you to not talk about the Harvard Bridge, just to further confuse people of what the hell a smoot is.
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ninjagin
09/26/09

@dfp3050: I wrestled with that, but I came down on the side of informing, to spread knowledge about the smoot as a unit of bridge measurement, in hopes that this might enrich the Gizmodo community's well of esoteric knowledge. Here today, gone tomorrow, though. The smoot will retain its obscurity and coolness, regardless. My physics professor used to throw in a few smoot problems in tests, just to give us a fun bit of work with units. Units and conversion are wonderful things to know and practice, don't you think?
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Identity (Metric)
09/26/09

@ninjagin: Excellently done.
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cpthook
09/26/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
So, if it takes $3B to complete this (surely a low estimate) and there are 20,000 trips a day (probably a high estimate) and you amortize this out over 10 years, each trip costs over $41.

I'm guessing each one of those trips is real important, otherwise this does not seem like a great investment.
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RetepNamenots
09/26/09

@cpthook: The two severn bridges between England and Wales carried on average 165,000 vehicles each day (in 2006).
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Bertone77
09/26/09

@cpthook: Your math does not add up.

Why would you only amortize this over 10 years? Surely it will still be in use for 50-75 even 100+ years.

And you are forgetting the cost of Gas to tavel 4 hrs vs 30 min's the savings is huge when multiplied x 20,000 trips per day.
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cpthook
09/28/09

@Bertone77: You should never calculate the costs of something like this over 50-70 years. If you can't earn a return on your money in under 10 years, that's a pretty poor investment. Additionally, you don't take into account the amount of maintenance over that time frame, which will be equal to at least 1/2 the cost of the bridge every 10 years or so over it's life.

@rotaryfan: Social good eh? I'm going to go ahead and guess the people in this country would probably choose to do something else with that $3B (or $10B when you're all said and done) if given the choice, unless of course each trip brings a $41 increase in wealth.
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Edited by cpthook at 09/28/09 2:42 AM cpthook was starred cpthook was unstarred

XsTatiC
09/26/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
ummm... 40kms = almost 25 miles... not 13.
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Scotland
09/26/09

@XsTatiC: 22km bridge and 18km embankments (13.67 miles and 11.18 miles (ish))

In addition, he "technically" said; "Over 13 Miles Long"
"more than 13 miles long"
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Edited by Scotland at 09/26/09 3:15 PM Scotland was starred Scotland was unstarred

justin.dzina
09/26/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
people will be lining up to jump off it =)
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Homerjay is utterly alone.
09/26/09

@justin.dzina: They won't have to line up. There's plenty of jumping room for everyone!
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DigitalSciGuy
09/26/09

@Homerjay likes Belgiumese Puke Porn: usually, if you want to kill yourself by jumping off a bridge, you want to do it effectively by jumping off a high bridge. Surely, potential jumpers will want to jump off the cable-stayed portion of the bridge and not the causeway.
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Homerjay is utterly alone.
09/27/09

@DigitalSciGuy: Well that explains why I survived my last attempted suicide! Thank you, kind sir! I'm off to try again! :)
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aek8
09/26/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
That's a long way but I'm not sure I'll really be impressed with a bridge's length until we build a trans-Atlantic or, if possible, a trans-Pacific.
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citizen024
09/26/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
damn middle east with their low labour costs, 3 billion is nothing for a project this big. How about we get a couple bridges/tunnels this length linking Russia and Alaska.
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Homerjay is utterly alone.
09/26/09

@citizen024: We built a 1 mile long tunnel here in Boston and it cost us about 6x that.
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InezTyphon
09/26/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
...except that the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is 23 miles long.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_Bridge-Tunnel

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SQLGuru
09/26/09

@InezTyphon: I give you the Causeway.... [www.thecauseway.com]

24miles and all across water. The one above specifically says "longest marine causeway" which I assume means over the sea instead of over a lake. But longest is always confusing.
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Nick
09/26/09

In reply to World's Largest Bridge to Stretch Over 13 Miles Long
you would think if they are comparing it's length to seomthing they would use oil tankers
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