Even when they’re built from concrete and steel using proven engineering principles, I still get anxious when crossing certain bridges. So there’s less than a zero percent chance that I’ll ever try crossing this 1,640-foot test of bravery in Siberia. It looks like it could instantly collapse under the weight of just a…
No longer confined by the limitations of a printed book, the Guinness Book of World Records has infinitely expanded to include almost every kind of questionable achievement humanity can attempt. Even grabbing 244 friends, jumping off a bridge, and swinging by a rope is enough to gain you pseudo-fame—at least until 246…
Modern materials engineering allows us to build what looks like precarious glass skywalks perched thousands of feet off the ground. They’re completely safe, but knowing that doesn’t make them any less terrifying to traverse—especially when the glass skywalk you’re on uses transparent LCD screens to make it look like…
There’s a crap ton of steel in broken down bridges and some of that steel gets repurposed into things like turntables. It’s already fun to imagine a structure that connects land getting re-used for an instrument for sound, but it’s even cooler to see the whole melty metal process of it all.
A crane collapsed across the span of New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge today, blocking traffic and wreaking havoc on the state’s longest bridge.
The catastrophic collapse of Washington State’s Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940 launched intensive research into the aerodynamics of bridge design. Now a team of South Korean scientists have identified a geometric structure that can better withstand the complicated aerodynamic forces at play—and they found their…
When LA closes a major freeway for construction, the city usually comes up with scary names for it to keep people off the roads. Carmageddon. Jamzilla. This weekend, the city is taking a different approach. The “101 Slow Jam” not only has a cute name, it has a video starring LA Mayor Eric Garcetti doing his best-worst…
I don’t know if these wooden planks can be considered a bridge or if they just constitute a poorly made death trap but I know that I wouldn’t even want to walk on the thing. And yet, this guy drives a truck that’s towing a boat over it! Nervousness alone would make me crash it right into the water below, destroying…
It’s by design that most modern cities grew up around rivers or coastlines. But today, those bodies of water pose problems for thousands of commuters who’d prefer to ride or walk–and cities are developing new infrastructure to bridge them.
Cities can learn a lot from Copenhagen’s multimodal ways. But how about this inspiring piece of infrastructure from the Danish city: Instead of simply adding a frilly statue to mark its harbor’s entrance, this bridge incorporates housing and provides a stunning vista for tourists and residents alike.
Remember Carmageddon, LA’s massive freeway widening project that was supposed to paralyze the city? (It didn’t.) The demolition of a single overpass alone took an entire weekend. Earlier this month, a major Beijing overpass was demolished and completely replaced in less than two days.
One of the largest remaining chunks of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge is coming down tomorrow, as engineers continue to dismantle the aging piece of infrastructure. But how to protect the fish and other wildlife in the area as it gets taken down? By blowing bubbles.
This footage from a few years back shows a bridge in Bedfordshire, England getting demolished in less than 15 hours. Basically, a night’s work was all it took to vaporize a steel and concrete structure. It’s really neat to see the progression and to see all the machines working in tandem. It’s also just really damn…
The love lock, that parasitic form of metal graffiti, has a complicated relationship with urban bridges. A new grassroots campaign is pressuring many cities to go lock-free, but it hasn’t been easy.
The single cable supporting the barely two-year-old eastern span of San Francisco’s Bay Bridge could be facing very real corrosion dangers, the lead designer of the $6.4 billion project warns.
Before the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges, there was High Bridge, arcing far above the Harlem River to connect Manhattan to the Bronx. Originally designed as an aqueduct in 1848, the bridge was closed for the past 40 years until a ribbon-cutting yesterday reopened it to foot traffic.
No glue. No cables. No steel reinforcements. The only thing keeping this bridge intact is, well, physics.
The sad state of America’s bridges is a perennial topic amongst engineers and a regular talking point for politicians, all of whom have a plan to fix them. An interesting post from the European Space Agency shows how one of the best tools for repair is actually hanging out in Low Earth Orbit.
The Golden Gate Bridge’s iconic “International Orange” paint job was a bit of a happy accident. If the United States Navy got its way, the landmark stretch of infrastructure would look like a bumble bee. That would’ve been just sad.
