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Comment by nikkwong | Hacker News Reader

It's hilariously depressing to imagine how impossible it would be to build something like that in the US. It's not only the fact that it's an engineering feat—it's also the fact that it was built in such a human-centric way. The cafe at the top, the light show with the water. These things are all superfluous, but make these projects exciting and add novelty which makes these areas just fun places to be. The U.S., in it's current form, could never build any infrastructure projects in such a human-centric way, because, well, we apparently have an inability to build anything at all.

Seriously, when's the last time we built something like this. The only initiative I can even think of is California high speed rail and that project just so happens to be a testament to the absolute antithesis of what I'm proclaiming.

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The two longest floating bridges in the world are in Seattle, Washington. The longest, Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, has a mixed use lane for cycling and walking and supposedly took 5 years to construct after construction started (ignoring that it replaced a bridge that existed there and also planning took longer, I'm not sure how to compare that). Seattle also has the world's only floating bridge that has rail on it, Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, which is also the world's 5th longest floating bridge. While not the same exact sort of feat of engineering, it's pretty cool.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_Point_Floating_Bri... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_V._Murrow_Memorial_Bri... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_M._Hadley_Memorial_Bri...

> Evergreen Point Floating Bridge

> Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge

I’ve biked and driven across these bridges many times and I’m quite certain I’ve never heard these names until this moment.

Nobody in the Seattle area uses those names. They are always just the I-90 bridge or 520 bridge among the people I talk to, although both roads actually use multiple bridges to span Lake Washington.

Yeah, I had to look up the bridge names. The "I-90 bridge" is actually both the Homer M. Madley and Lacey V Murrow Memorial bridges, and that's excluding the two bridges that are east of Mercer Island. I wanted to be more exact, and at that point I also added the 520 bridge's real name.

And the best demonstration of Seattle's hapless "can't do" attitude is that they left the watertight doors open one day in 1990 and the bridge pontoons filled with water and the bridge sank. Back then, by some miracle the bridge was fixed in a few weeks, but today it would take 10 years.

When the light rail line was installed on the I-90 bridge, after the whole thing was done it was discovered that the rail ties were built incorrectly. This was in April 2023. Thousands of concrete ties had to be demolished and construction had to start over. Of course this took years. God forbid that someone should check the work along the way.

If Seattle was a Simpsons character, it would be Ralph Wiggum when he's grown up and has one foot permanently stuck in a bucket.

I'm not saying America can't build at all, I'm just saying it can't build in the modern era. Apparently the i90 bridge you are referring to was built in 1940.

I realize that Seattle has the only floating bridge with rail on it. Actually my mom is the lead photographer for Sound Transit, the agency in charge with it's development. Sound Transit.. to say the least, is a huge embarrassment for the region. They're way over budget, way behind schedule on all of their initiatives with the lightrail. Sure, there are engineering marvels that exist here and there on the project—but it's not a testament to the U.S's ability to deliver infrastructure at a reasonable speed or budget.

The Penobscot Narrows Bridge (opened, 2006) was the first thing that sprang to mind.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penobscot_Narrows_Bridge_and...

One end has an observation deck, built just for fun! It’s on the slower, non I-95 route up through Maine to Bar Harbor / Acadia National Park.

>non I-95 route up through Maine to Bar Harbor / Acadia National Park.

Which basically means that that whole bit of $$ producing tourism infra is that much closer to everything south.

Again, the wikipedia article that you linked points to a preposterous insufficiency in our ability to maintain infrastructure:

"[...] On February 26, 2014, in the wake of another suicide from the bridge, independent Rep. Joe Brooks of Winterport proposed emergency legislation to the Maine Legislature to require the installation of a suicide barrier on the bridge.[22] This proposal was rejected due to cost, as a barrier was estimated to cost between $500,000 and $1 million, plus additional costs for regular inspections. As an alternative, two solar-powered phones were installed on each end of the bridge in May 2015 which connect users to a suicide hotline. The phones cost $30,000. State officials were aware of instances the phones were not functional, and increased inspections of them to weekly from the previous monthly. They could not determine if the phones were functional when a March 5, 2017 suicide, the first since the phones were installed, occurred. The phones were found to be out of order on June 23, 2017, when an abandoned car on the bridge resulted in a search of the Penobscot River by authorities looking for its driver.[7] The emergency phones on the Penobscot Narrows Bridge were reported out of order following another suicide in 2021.[9][23] They were subsequently replaced.[24] In May 2022, the Maine legislature was reportedly planning to "pull together a study group on suicides by bridge."[25] Funding was subsequently approved for a barrier, but the installation slated for 2024 was delayed for further testing..."

Why are our systems like this? There is no culture of accountability, for one. There is also no desire to dream big, anymore, it seems.

Why is everything so expensive when it's paid by the State?

If you get a chance, you should read (or listen to) Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses[1] who built much if not most of the parks in New York. He built many of them at a time with Roosevelt was using public money to provide jobs for people thrown out of work during the Great Depression. These public works projects are often scorned by today's electorate.

But perhaps more importantly, getting insights into how the government building things gives the people who can grant contracts tremendous political leverage and power. It is remarkable to see that what he built was definitely good for New Yorkers (although as the book points out, really for rich and white New Yorkers) and the distortions they caused in the political machine caused some people serious grief from loss of property to loss of their entire livelihood.

Authoritarian systems can operate like that but it comes at a tremendous cost.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker

And it’s amazing that this got built in only 3 years! I can’t imagine anything this substantial being built that fast in the US. I can’t think of any examples either but I’d be happy to see some that anyone knows of.

Visiting China will shake your world view as a westerner. It did mine.

I’m still grateful at a personal level to live in a democracy, but I’m not as certain as I used to be that it’s the only way to run a country that benefits the people.

The infrastructure is incredible yes, but the complete lack of fear on the streets, and the positive consequences of that, are something to behold. Women are not afraid to walk home alone at 2am. People young and old dance together in the street. You never feel on your guard, at all.

They haven’t completely eradicated poverty, but they seem to be giving it a real go. In one very rural area I saw an elderly couple living in a rundown shack, but they had a bunch of modern medical equipment, provided to them for free by the state.

Not to put too fine a point on it but how much of this is due to a homogeneous census?

> "Seriously, when's the last time we built something like this."

Easy to check: look up Wikipedia's "List of highest bridges", and sort by date.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_bridges#Comple...

Just the environmental reviews would cost over $1b.

Going to need a business case that translates to value, sorry. Common sentiment, apparently, is that our postal service must generate profit. Clown show.

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