Bridges are so 20th Century

Originally Posted on Tuesday, March 07, 2006

It would seem that building a bridge over the water would be far easier, cheaper and efficient than digging a tunnel under the water...but as if often the case, things are not as they seem. When you look at the long term effects of the structure and the impact upon the maritime industry it becomes clear that although the short term cost will be higher, the long term and maintenance costs are much lower with a tunnel. Plus tunnels are really cool!!! That's not to say that bridges are not cool; one of my favorite bridges is the Sunshine Skyway that I take to visit my Mom in St. Petersburg. It's huge and impressive, it's at least a half minute on the way up and again on the way down, but the real draw of the ride is the degree of incline, which as far as I am concerned is 45 degrees although....let me Google...WOW thats always interesting...apparently on a very stormy night in Tampa Bay back in 1980 a Phosphate ship rammed into one of the supports for the original Sunshine Skyway Bridge...horribly close to 50 people died...most on a Greyhound on its way to Miami...when the bridge was dislodged and some 2000 ft. of bridge fell into the cold stormy water.

What a story! So then they completed the current Sunshine Skyway bridge in 1987 and it has extra-special measures to protect against ramming ships....and that incline I was talking about, that is a result of the center of the bridge being raised so high that the largest of vessels can easily pass through. Herein lies the main problem with bridges: they disrupt marine traffic. So I am very pleased to see that the City of Miami is planning to build a tunnel to ease truck traffic departing the Port of Miami. This port is one of the most important ports in the United States due to it's geographic proximity to the Americas. Although it is still some time down the road, it is a forward move that a Modern World City would take to improve it's economic prosperity.