Pittsburgh had a bridge that for a while was called The Bridge To Nowhere.
Construction started in 1959 then was delayed in 1963 due to disputes over where the exit ramps should go and wasn’t fully finished until 1969.
There is a story of someone who actually drove off it documented in one of Rick Sebak’s (WQED Pittsburgh) videos* Flying Off The Bridge To Nowhere and Other Tales of Pittsburgh’s Bridges *
My God, that is the coolest thing EVER.
Where/what is that?
caphis, it’s the Coronado Bridge, across the San Diego Harbor.
About ten years ago, I worked for a landscaping company a few hundred miles north of there, just outside Annapolis, Maryland. We had one job on the Eastern Shore, across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Every morning, I drove a truck a couple of years older than I was over that thing to the site, and then back home every afternoon. Now, while the engine of the truck had been lovingly maintained (at least well enough that it only broke down twice a month), the floorboards hadn’t. There were some pretty good size rusted out holes in the floor, so that when you were driving, you could look down and see the road.
What you can’t tell from that picture is that the bridge deck between the suspension towers is steel grating. So twice a day, I would steal glances downward, through the floor of my truck, through the deck of bridge, to the Chesapeake bay 200 feet below. It was really cool and really disconcerting at the same time.
I great up in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and I never realized that bridge-tunnels like that are unique to the area - but everyone here seems positively flabbergasted. In Hampton Roads alone, we have the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge (pictured), the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (very similar), and then the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, which is a ~20 mile long series of bridges and tunnels.
It’s really no big deal driving through the thing. You’re only in the tunnel for about 45 seconds or so. The real irritation is that there’s no passing! 
Here’s the
Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.
:eek:
Thanks a bunch for the massive case of the heebie jeebies. You’re all a real swell bunch.
That was in Oklahoma on a stretch of I-40 that I have driven across many times in the past. Here’s a link with pictures of what it looked like.
The brutal thing about it is that you wouldn’t even consider yourself driving on a bridge - it’s very long and flat and the view is of very large muddy lakes on either side, so the coloring kinda washes out and you’re kinda hypnotized. I can easily seeing people unable to notice in time.
Check this out from the link above:
My friend asked me a question about the underwater tunnel bridge:
Couldn’t a big wave come and fill up the tunnel with water??
I had no idea that I had problems with tunnels until I drove from NE Ohio to Knoxville TN, through WV and part of VA last August.
I hit those tunnels at the VA border - there are 2 or three of them on the route I took, and it was all I could do to keep myself from panicking with the first one. The second one, I was able to prepare myself for the stress, but I still wasn’t happy about it.
Next time I drive that down towards TN, I’m taking the ok route - across Ohio, through KY and down into TN. Avoiding all the tunnels.
I remember hearing about the Oklahoma bridge collapse. Did they ever determine what happened with the barge captain/pilot/whatever?
The guy who was responsible for the Summit Venture hitting the Skyway had a miserable tortured life after that. His life was ruined, he developed MS and eventually died.
I guess it could, but you’re talking about something like if a large meteor hit the bay nearby. Even something like the recent Tsunami would be lucky to make 2-inches deep of water accumulate in there. The tunnels are BIG - they’re very long, are a very, VERY gradual slope, and have drains and things in them.
I got you another one for your dreams. This is the new Sunshine Skyway that Wile E referred to. It is in fact much better than the old one, but it’s still just shy of terrifying.
The 4-mile-long roadbed, at its highest point, is ~200 feet over the water, and the top of the support towers is twice that. It’s constructed like a causeway, though – only the standard 30-inch-or-so concrete barriers along the edges of the road. When you reach the top, you cannot tell whether or not the road is still there ahead of you. When you take into account what happened to the old Skyway, it kind of gives ya a little pause. I do not drive this when it is foggy, because that’s how it happened last time.
Sure is pretty to look at, though.
They’re talking about the channel, which they could presumably dredge further. The tunnel sections are already deep enough to permit a larger channel if they chose to built it.
At least that’s how I read it.
Maybe the the ramps to nowhere on Seattle’s SR520,
Orthose on the I-5/I-90 interchange are more to your liking.
If you scroll down to the eighth picture you can see them.
Hell, we’ve had one of those for eight years now. You drive way out into Tokyo harbor, until the land is almost out of sight, and then… it all just disappears under the waves.
http://web-japan.org/atlas/architecture/arc06.html
Pleasant dreams 
I live outside Charleston, and I’m excited to see the new bridge going up. It’s certainly much better than the old bridges, where all that stands between you and the river is a flimsy metal railing. Northbound isn’t nearly as bad as southbound. Those lanes are tiny. I know people who won’t drive over the bridges. I think it’s kinda fun though, in a scary sorta way. I’ll be glad when they finish the new bridge.
Wasn’t there some talk about this bridge already starting to fall apart? Cracked pylons or some such thing? I’m not crazy about it either but after having driven the single span of the old Skyway, this one is tons better. My palms don’t get nearly as sweaty driving it.
Yes. The pylons supporting the center span are starting to show signs of premature failure, including cracks in the main supports, erosion of the piers upon which those pylons are built, and corrosion on the cables of the cable-stayed portion. The DOT says it’s still safe to drive on, but my fear is that something like this will happen while I’m on it.
I’m terrified of bridges.
I seem to recall a similar accident, like 20 or 30 years ago (??), on a Louisiana bridge, and I want to say Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Bridge (the longest bridge in the world!), but that could be wrong, and I can’t seem to find any online stories about it with such vague memories at work here. But that story always scared the shit out of me – cars just driving off the broken edge of the bridge at 70mph, plunging to their deaths. Shudder.
And that Millau Bridge, all shrouded in fog, would have me bawling, vomiting and quivering on the floor if anyone ever tried to make me go over it. No way in hell.
The local bridge I simply will not drive over is the Vincent Thomas bridge into San Pedro. I had a panic attack the last time I even drove near it, thinking I might have to get on it to get to my destination, and there might not have been an exit I could’ve taken to avoid it (thank Og I didn’t end up having to).
I read that quote as simply saying the tunnel is larger than currently necessary, so should the shipping channel in future need to be dredged to a greater extent than at present, the tunnel won’t become an obstacle.
