GETTING LAID A ‘Tiger-Stone’ machine paved a road in IJmuiden, Netherlands, Tuesday. The Dutch-made machine uses gravity and an electric motor to lay stone and brick roads and is capable of laying 300 square meters (about 360 square yards) of road a day. (Photo: Erik Van ‘t Woud / EPA via The Wall Street Journal)
(Source: wsj,com)
The New York Daily News goes underground to check out progress on the Second Avenue Subway line. It’s set to open in 2016.
NASA scientists and engineers describe exactly how they’re gonna get the rover Curiosity onto the surface of Mars in this pretty fantastically done video, Seven Minutes of Terror.
SANS SPAN In this June 5, 1908 photo provided by the New York City Municipal Archives, the superstructure from the Manhattan Bridge is seen rising above Washington Street in lower Manhattan. (Photo: Eugene deSalignac / Dept. of Bridges / Plant & Structures via the NYC Municipal Archives / New York Daily News)
TROUBLED BRIDGE OVER WATER The Fort Steuben Bridge was destroyed in a controlled explosion in Steubenville, Ohio, Tuesday. The Ohio Department of Transportation closed the 83-year-old bridge three years ago due to deteriorating conditions and its limited use. (Photo: Michael D. McElwain / The Herald Star via the AP / Wall Street Journal)
COLUMN / SOLEMN A man stood on a supporting column for the Jiaxing-Shaoxing Bridge in Haining, Zhejiang Province, China, Tuesday. Builders claim it will be the world’s longest multispan, cable-stayed bridge when it is completed. (Photo: AP via the Wall Street Journal)
Happy 80th birthday to the most beautiful span in the world, the George Washington Bridge — even if the Port Authority that operates you comprises a bunch of money grubbing dickwads.
And also, that an expansion of the Canal is underway.
(Photo: Fred R. Conrad / The New York Times)
The Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in Qingdao, China, opened Thursday. With a span of 26.4 miles, it is the world’s longest cross-sea bridge, breaking the record previously held by the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana. (Photo: Xinhua / Zuma Press via the Wall St. Journal)
Wow — you can run an entire marathon on this thing!
We dare you to cross this one-of-a-kind bridge. Via Atlas Obscura:
Known as keshwa chaca, this is the only remaining example of the Incan handwoven bridges once common in the Incan road system. Made of woven grass, the bridge spans 118 feet and hangs 220 feet above the canyon’s rushing river.
The Incan women braided small, thin ropes, which were then braided again by the men into large support cables, much like a modern steel suspension bridge. Handwoven bridges lasted as long as 500 years and were held in very high regard by the Inca. The punishment for tampering with such a bridge was death.
Over time, however, the bridges decayed, or were removed, leaving this single testament to Incan engineering. This previously sagging bridge was repaired in 2003, christened with a traditional Incan ceremonial bridge blessing, and is now in extremely good condition.
ALPSHOLE A miner climbed on excavated rocks after a giant drill machine broke through a section of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland Wednesday. Crossing the Alps, the world’s longest train tunnel should become operational at the end of 2016. (Photo: Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters via the Wall St. Journal)
Great photo.
Had any other populous country suffered the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that shook Japan on Friday, tens of thousands of people might already be counted among the dead. So far, Japan’s death toll is in the hundreds, although it is certain to rise somewhat.
Over the years, Japan has spent billions of dollars developing the most advanced technology against earthquakes and tsunamis. The Japanese, who regularly experience smaller earthquakes and have lived through major ones, know how to react to quakes and tsunamis because of regular drills — unlike Southeast Asians, many of whom died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami because they lingered near the coast despite clear warnings to flee.
Communities along Japan’s coastline, especially in areas that have been hit by tsunamis in the past, tend to be the best prepared. Local authorities can usually contact residents directly through warning systems set up in each home; footpaths and other escape routes leading to higher ground tend to be clearly marked.
In the country that gave the world the word tsunami, Japan, especially in the 1980’s and 1990’s, built concrete seawalls in many communities, some as high as 40 feet. In addition, some coastal towns have set up networks of sensors that can sound alarms in every residence and automatically closed floodgates when an earthquake strikes to prevent waves from surging up rivers. Ports are sometimes equipped with raised platforms.
The world has a new longest over-water bridge, and it’s in China. Via Dvice:
China, which already boasts the three longest bridges over land, just toppled the 24-mile-long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana to take the belt for the longest bridge over water, too. The country is now home to an impressive 26.4 miles of bridge over the Jiaozhou Bay, but that’s not even the craziest part.
Possibly more astounding than the fact that the Qingdao Haiwan Bridge is so long, is that it only took China four years to build it, with 10,000 workers and $8.5 billion backing the effort. The bridge will knock about 20 to 30 minutes off of the commute for workers commuting between the port city of Qingdao and the Huangdao suburbs, and is expected to see 30,000 cars rolling over it a day. That’s a pretty poor minutes-to-dollars ratio, but from the sounds of it Qingdao is on the up-and-up and the addition of the bridge could boost the region’s economy.
Of course, part of the problem with something this massive is making sure it stays up. The Qingdao Haiwan Bridge sits atop 5,200 columns and is designed to withstand anything from a 8.0 earthquake to a fierce typhoon.
