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Turkey just opened the new suspension bridge longest in the world: 2,023 meters. The viaduct has the curious name of 1915 Çanakkale, and exceeds in just over 30 meters to the previous engineering record in this categorythe bridge Akashi Kaikyo, in Japan, which measures 1,991 meters.
In case you were wondering, it’s been a long time since the Golden Gate Bridge lost the title of longest suspension bridge in the world. The iconic viaduct that crosses the San Francisco Bay measures 1,280 meters. It is still an impressive figure considering that it was built in 1937.
If, like me, you know Bilbao, perhaps you thought that the largest suspension bridge is the one in Bizkaia that separates Getxo from Portugalete, but it turns out that the magnificent steel structure built in 1893 it is not technically a suspension bridge (it is popularly called that), but a ferry bridge. The Hanging bridges (Suspension Bridges in English) are those in which the platform that supports the load is suspended in the air by means of a system of huge cables attached to vertical braces.
The 1915 Çanakkale is located 217 kilometers southwest of Istanbul and connects the cities of Lapseki y Sutluce above the waters of the Dardanelles Strait. your sinuliar hombre is a tribute to a World War I battle in which the Ottoman navy defeated a combined force of British and French ships in the same waters in 1915. Even the length of 2,023 meters is symbolic because Turkey will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the declaration of its republic in 2023.
Those 2,023 meters refer only to the hanging part of the viaduct, which is the one that has broken the engineering record. The complete bridge with all its sections measures 4.6 kilometers, and lhe tensioned towers that support the structure are 318 meters high.
The construction of the bridge began in 2017 and 5,000 workers have participated in it. The total cost has exceeded 2,500 million euros, but the government will have to pay annual operating costs of up to 6,000 million. Cross the bridge 1915 Çanakkale costs around 12 euros. In exchange for that toll, you can cover a journey in six minutes that until now could only be covered in an hour by ferry.[[Reuters]
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