The Millau viaduct is part of the new E11 expressway connecting Paris and Barcelona and features the highest bridge piers ever constructed. The tallest is 240 meters high and the overall height will be an impressive 336 meters (1118 Feet), making this the highest bridge in the world.






and finally...



All I can say is HELL NO.

8/14/2007 11:15:32 AM

it'll really suck when that one collapses.

8/14/2007 11:17:18 AM

I mean damn, look at thqat one picture. The friggin' bridge is in the clouds.

8/14/2007 11:18:12 AM

Looks like I'll be taking my own life after all

8/14/2007 11:18:24 AM

A) fog is going to be a PITA
B) why on earth did they add the strutual complexity and materials cost of making it curved when it looks like it could have been straight.
C) wonder what it's "expected working lifetime" is... b/c all this discussion recently is about all the US bridges being designed for 40-60 years and that time being up...

8/14/2007 11:22:07 AM

^ it is straight....

the last pic is a 'fisheye' panoramic.....

8/14/2007 11:27:20 AM

^^ B) the bridge is straight, the last picture is with a wide angle fisheye lens, which makes it appear to be curved

^ dammit

[Edited on August 14, 2007 at 11:27 AM. Reason : .]

8/14/2007 11:27:33 AM

[Edited on August 14, 2007 at 11:29 AM. Reason : poop]

8/14/2007 11:28:56 AM

I think I would just ride down the valley and go across the short bridge.

8/14/2007 11:29:49 AM

Looks expensive.

Seems like one of those "Let's do something big just for the hell of it" type things.

8/14/2007 11:32:53 AM

Ah yeah it looked straight in the first few pictures but I didn't know if it was just so long that it would always look straight from certain angles... Thanks for enlightening me, I feel silly... but still no way I would have instantly known "walleye panoramic"...

8/14/2007 11:41:20 AM

I think a lot of people will, once they see the toll for crossing the bridge.

8/14/2007 11:41:25 AM

That's insane. It'd be surreal to drive over it.

I wonder how long it will be before the first BASE jumpers hit it up.

8/14/2007 12:27:34 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKoOjeOn9MA

8/14/2007 12:45:29 PM

wild stuff, but

Quote :

"Seems like one of those "Let's do something big just for the hell of it" type things"

seems like it could be right on point

8/14/2007 1:23:51 PM

you guys living under rocks???



this bridge is like about 3 years old by now!!!

Quote :

"overall height will be an impressive 336 "

you mean HAS BEEN FOR 3 YEARS.



[Edited on August 14, 2007 at 1:37 PM. Reason : ]

8/14/2007 1:25:30 PM

it wasnt a build it for the hell of it project

it was a necessary north-south to complete a vital north-south artery

might as well make it pretty

8/14/2007 1:27:25 PM

looks like somebody hit the wrong button in sim city

8/14/2007 1:40:03 PM

0EPII1, didnt you already make this thread once

8/14/2007 1:41:35 PM

Quote :

"0EPII1, didnt you already make this thread once"

Hmmm... not that I can remember. If I did, must have been way back in 2004, when the bridge was made. But I do have a Dubai thread in the lounge... perhaps you are mixing up the two? Anyway, I dont' remember myself.

BTW, it is a shame it is closed to pedestrians. How hard would it have been to build it a meter wider (fenced) for pedstrians, and they could have charged people a Euro to go on it. View from it would be fuckin amazing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct

Some MUST SEE pics:

(they are insanely huge, so click)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Wiadukt_Millau.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Viaduc_de_Millau_1.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/44/MillauViaductSpectators.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Viaduc_de_millau_peri.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/47/Foster_viaduc_de_millau.jpg


Their smaller versions and some more pics below.

Quote :

"Statistics Lifespan: > 120 yrs (builder's claim) Cost: €394 million (> $0.5 billion) 2,460 m: total length of the roadway 7: number of piers 77 m: height of Pier 7, the shortest 343 m: height of Pier 2, the tallest (245 m at the roadway's level) 89 m: height of a mast 154: number of shrouds 270 m: average height of the roadway 4.20 m: thickness of the roadway 32.05 m: width of the roadway 127,000 m³: total volume of concrete used 290,000 tonnes: total weight of the bridge 10,000–25,000 vehicles: estimated daily traffic €5.40–7.00: typical automobile toll, as of July 2007 20 km: horizontal radius of curvature of the road deck "

8/14/2007 2:01:44 PM

Is anyone else reminded of that bridge from Shadow of the Colossus?

8/14/2007 2:10:57 PM

They should ride over it on Le Tour.

8/14/2007 8:09:27 PM

Way to ruin the picturesque countryside

8/15/2007 1:43:47 PM

Ugly and pointless.

8/15/2007 1:49:41 PM

shallow and pedantic

8/15/2007 2:48:19 PM

Quote :

"How hard would it have been to build it a meter wider (fenced) for pedstrians"

millions and millions of dollars

8/15/2007 2:50:40 PM

^ According to my simplistic calculation (33/32 * 394 million), it would have cost ~3% more, which is 12 million Euros.

Yeah, that is millions and millions, but that is on top of 394 million. 3% is not much.

If they charged 2 Euros for each visitor, and assuming 500,000 visitors annually, that 12 million could be recouped in 12 years. If they charged 4 Euros, and assuming 1 million visitors annually, it would take just 3 years.

I am sure people would even hold weddings there.

Anyway, it is sad.

8/15/2007 2:59:42 PM

They're more worried about suicides.

8/15/2007 3:06:54 PM

WHERE WOULD THEY BURY THE SURVIVORS lol

8/15/2007 3:07:25 PM

I can't wait to see german tanks rolling across it!

8/15/2007 3:10:10 PM

hahahahaha

or even better: the french blow it up to deny it to the germans

8/15/2007 7:18:37 PM

I believe they did an entire episode of Top Gear aimed towards driving to that bridge.
Jeremy in his Ford GT, Richard in a a Pagani Zonda S, and James in a Ferrari F430.
Great episode.

8/15/2007 7:33:53 PM

seems like i read or heard somewhere that the bridge reduces the commute time across the valley from 2-3 hours to 20 minutes.

8/15/2007 8:25:34 PM

Quote :

"Way to ruin the picturesque countryside"

Quote :

"Ugly and pointless."

can you guys not see beauty in man made objects? As far as being "pointless", who's to say that, except for the people who will actually use it. To you, building I-540 around North Raleigh might be pointless, but I can garun-fucking-tee you that to a person living in Knightdale and working in RTP, 540 is far from pointless.

I think the bridge is breathtaking, much more so than that valley it crosses otherwise. I mean, is this bridge any more devastating to the countryside than the clearcutting, parcelling, farming, road building, and commercialization that has obviously already occurred in that valley?

That valley is nice, yes. Picturesque, eh, i guess. Are there hundreds more that look just like it throughout France, Germany, Spain, Austria and Italy? Definitely. Now this one actually stands apart.

Look at this picture, and tell me what you see.....

A nice countryside? sure. Anything special? i don't really think so.


Now this one:

to me, now that's something to look at.

8/15/2007 8:49:47 PM

that's some nice photoshopping

8/17/2007 2:27:10 PM

i know. i have mad skillz
(Clone + Smudge)

8/17/2007 5:56:03 PM

why not just build a road through the valley

8/17/2007 6:03:37 PM

there already is a road through the valley, and judging from the pictures, actually several of them.
you really need to find out the motivation behind the bridge before suggesting something as simple minded as "why not just build a road through the valley". Maybe two major cities lie on both sides of the valley and people commute from one to another. Maybe too many people used to use the small, windy road going down the hill and they drove too fast and kept driving off the edge. Maybe the little town at the bottom of the valley were tired of people driving through their city streets when they were just trying to get to the other side.

Who knows. but the one think you can't argue against is that the bridge makes it faster, easier, and safer to get from one side to the other. Whoever decided to build the bridge must have thought those reasons were enough to outweigh the cost of building it.

8/17/2007 7:09:44 PM

i found it on Google Maps
http://tinyurl.com/379z7a

it looks like this is during construction. if you zoom in, you can see several of the piers and a lot of construction. It's part of the Interstate system in France, so I think you would agree that no Interstate in the US would have twisty roads going down a hill like the prior road (the existing one in the Google Map)

8/17/2007 10:04:03 PM

in the google map pic you can really see the advantage of the viaduct over driving the long winding road(s) down through the valley.

8/18/2007 1:24:13 AM