http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040528/photos_wl_afp/040528144559_xu69voi7_photo0
I just saw this on Slashdot. Does anyone know anything about the bridge? Why did it have to be so tall?
I’m getting a case of vertigo just from the picture. I can’t imagine actually traversing it.
Man, I love bridges. But that one is seriously tall. I would have a white knuckled grip on the steering wheel all the way across. Maybe even throw in a few Hail Marys just in case.
It would be pretty windy at that height, wouldn’t it? But, man, how cool would it be to drive across that when it was foggy down in the valley!
What amazes me is that it’s actually cost-effective to build such a long, high bridge, rather than have the road descend and then ascend again… But then, I live in Norway, where road engineers are a lot more used to dealing with 70 degree inclines than building motorways 
Add me to the list of people who’s not sure I could drive over that without the aid of pharmaceuticals…
Not that cost-effective.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13389-2004Apr14?language=printer
Woot! Time for some serious BASE jumping!
I did a little Googling on why the heck they did a viaduct instead of a road across the valley. Information was a bit lacking, but http://bridgepros.com/projects/Millau_Viaduct/ seems to have the best data.
If I’m reading it and other less-useful sources correctly, the Tarn River has cut a gorge at this point, and the road needs to be here for other reasons, making crossing that valley the most cost-effective way to build the new Paris-Mediterranean route that this is a part of. Granted that it’s a very wide valley (2.5 KM across), nonetheless its sides are apparently gorge-steep, making constructing a descent at each side to cross the valley at ground level more expensive than simply building a viaduct to keep the road at the high level at which it approaches and leaves the valley.
I don’t guarantee that information, but it seems to be what people are saying here and elsewhere.
Why a duck?
Forget about the danger of driving OFF the bridge, which is bad enough; what if someone accidentally (or, God forbid deliberately) knocked down one of the supports?
And I thought the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa/Bradenton was scary! lol!
Eeeks! This made me picture the last scene from “Thelma and Louise”! I don’t want to “hurtle” my vehicle anywhere!!! :eek:
Count me out. Just the picture made my palms tingle, and I get a teensy bit nervous driving over the Tappan Zee. It would be pretty amazing though, if I wouldn’t be totally terrified.
[Pink Floy] Mother, did it need to be so high?[/Pink Floyd]
I am terrified of bridges … for fear that they may fall with me on them, but this is pretty damn cool (from the ground of course)
how driving over it ‘may’ not be so bad
the actual site if you want to take a peek
It comes in other languages too … the website that is, not the bridge 
Oh dear…the constuction firm is the same one that built the Charles de Gaulle terminal that collapsed this week… :eek:
I’ve been across the Sunshine Skyway many times. And actually, the old span was waaaay scarier than the re-built version. It was much steeper, and had an open metal grating sort of affair at the top that made a lot of noise when you drove over it.
I remember they used to have all kinds of cameras set up at the top too, because it used to be a favorite place for people who wanted to end it all to jump from :eek:
Wha? That’s less than 900 feet. The road surface of the Royal Gorge Bridge is over 1000 feet abouve the surface of the earth. It’s still pretty cool, in that it has standing supports, but it’s not a driving surface above the earth record, stupid Yahoo news.