List of longest suspension bridge spans
The world's longest suspension bridges are listed according to the length of their main span (i.e. the length of suspended roadway between the bridge's towers). The length of main span is the most common method of comparing the sizes of suspension bridges, often correlating with the height of the towers and the engineering complexity involved in designing and constructing the bridge.[1] If one bridge has a longer span than another it does not necessarily mean that the bridge is longer from shore to shore (or from abutment to abutment).
Suspension bridges have the longest spans of any type of bridge. Cable-stayed bridges, the next longest design, are practical for spans up to just over 1 kilometre. Therefore, the 17 longest bridges on this list are all currently the 17 longest spans of all types of vehicular bridges (other than floating pontoon bridges).
Completed suspension bridges
This list includes only completed suspension bridges that carry automobiles or trains. It does not include cable-stayed bridges, footbridges, or pipeline bridges.
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Bridges under construction
Most of the large suspension bridges built in recent years have been in the People's Republic of China. As the following list shows, most of the bridges under construction are also in China.
Planned and proposed bridges
| Name | Location | Main span |
Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gibraltar Bridge | Spain to Morocco | Very long | Proposed | Some designs have suspension spans of several miles. The suspension cables of a very long bridge might be suspended from the ends of cable-stayed struts extending diagonally from huge pylons. However, as of 2008, the feasibility of a tunnel is being considered instead. |
| HAFAST | Sulafjorden, Norway | 4,000 m (13,000 ft) | Bridge under planning | Will replace the ferry connecting Hareid and Sula, as well as being part of the national "Ferry-free E39" project. Expected start 2020 and finished 2024? |
| Sognebrua | Sognefjorden, Norway | 3,700 m (12,100 ft) | Proposed | One of several proposals for crossing the 1300m deep fjord as part of making the E39 highway along Norway's west coast ferry-free. The bridge would utilize two towers 450 m tall and have a maximum clearance above water of 70 m. Plans call for the highway project, including this crossing, to finish by 2025. |
| Strait of Messina Bridge | Sicily to mainland Italy | 3,300 m (10,800 ft) | Cancelled | The project was canceled on 11 October 2006 by the Romano Prodi-led government amid controversy concerning the bridge's cost.[97] The new government from 2008 led by Silvio Berlusconi wanted to pick up the project again. Preliminary works were to begin in December 2009. The main construction was expected to begin in 2012. As of February 2013, the project has again been cancelled. |
| Sunda Strait Bridge | Java to Sumatra, Indonesia | about 3,000 m (9,800 ft) | Preliminary work | This project has been approved by the Indonesian government. If completed, it will not only be the world's longest suspension bridge (26 km), but will also have a main span of about 3,000 m (9,800 ft)—roughly fifty percent longer than the current record.[98] |
| Malacca Strait Bridge | Peninsular Malaysia, Malaysia to Sumatra, Indonesia | 2,600 m (8,500 ft) | Preliminary work | Joint project between the Malaysian and Indonesian governments for a 48 km long crossing. Included is a suspension span of 2,600 m and a cable-stayed span of 1,200 m; making both longer than any existing in their category. |
| Storfjord Bridge | Storfjorden, Norway | 2,300 m (7,500 ft) | Plans under consideration | Will replace the ferry connecting the municipalities of Sykkylven and Ålesund as well as being part of the "ferry-free E39" project. Unusually, the proposed design will have the roadway split around single column towers. |
| Çanakkale 1915 Bridge | Crossing the Dardanelles, Turkey | 2,023 m (6,637 ft) | Plans under consideration | The bridge will be part of Kınalı-Tekirdağ-Çanakkale-Balıkesir Motorway project. |
| Edvard Grieg Bridge | Halsafjord, Norway | about 2,000 m (6,600 ft) | Proposed | The bridge will replace a ferry, and reduce the driving time between Trondheim and Molde by 34 minutes. |
| Mao Zedong Bridge | Qiongzhou Strait, China | about 2,000 m (6,600 ft) | Preliminary work | A suspension bridge is being considered to cross the 22.5 km wide Qiongzhou Strait.[99] One design consists of four bridges strung together with four main spans of 2,000 m, two main-spans of 1,800 m, five anchorages and 10 towers.[100] If completed this bridge will assume six of the top seven longest spans. |
| Chacao Channel bridge | Chiloé to mainland Chile | 1,100 m (3,600 ft) | Preliminary work [101] | This unusual design had two main spans of 1,055 m and 1,100 m without an anchorage between them. Construction was supposed to begin in 2007 and completed in 2012, but because of cost overruns, the project is now on hold. |
History of longest suspension spans
| Bridge | Location | length m (ft) |
Year became longest span |
Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maya Bridge at Yaxchilan | Mexico | 62 m (203 ft) | 600 | Hemp-rope simple suspension footbridge. Existence unproven. No longer standing. | |
 |
Chakzam Bridge | Tibet | 137 m (449 ft) | 1430 | Chain suspension footbridge south of Lhasa, built by Thangtong Gyalpo. Reported by British spies to still be in use in 1878. Later (before 1904) fell into disuse after river course changed, swamping the northern end.[102] Dynamited by Chinese soldiers after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950.[103] |
 |
Union Bridge | UK | 137 m (449 ft) | 1820 | The oldest in the world still in use today. |
 |
Menai Suspension Bridge | UK | 176 m (577 ft) | 1826 | |
 |
Great Suspension Bridge | Fribourg, Switzerland | 271 m (889 ft) | 1834 | The bridge was replaced by the Zähringen Bridge in the 1920s. |
 |
Wheeling Suspension Bridge | West Virginia - Ohio | 308 m (1,010 ft) | 1849 | The longest deck span from 1849 until 1866, and the oldest vehicular suspension bridge in use in the United States. |
 |
Queenston-Lewiston Bridge | US and Canada | 317 m (1,040 ft) | 1851 | The longest cable span from 1851 until it was destroyed by wind in 1864. However, the road deck span was only 258 meters long. |
 |
John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge | Kentucky - Ohio | 322 m (1,056 ft) | 1866 | |
 |
Niagara Clifton Bridge | US and Canada | 384 m (1,260 ft) | 1869 | Replaced in 1899. |
 |
Brooklyn Bridge | New York City, US | 486 m (1,594 ft) | 1883 | |
 |
Williamsburg Bridge | New York City, US | 488 m (1,601 ft) | 1903 | It was the longest suspension span but not the longest span of all bridges. The Forth Railway Bridge with two spans of 521 m was longer. |
 |
Bear Mountain Bridge | New York, US | 497 m (1,631 ft) | 1924 | It was the longest suspension span but not the longest span of all bridges. The Quebec Bridge with a span of 549 m was longer. The first suspension bridge to have a concrete deck. The construction methods pioneered in building it would make possible several much larger projects to follow. |
 |
Benjamin Franklin Bridge | Pennsylvania - New Jersey, US | 533 m (1,749 ft) | 1926 | It was the longest suspension span but not the longest span of all bridges. |
 |
Ambassador Bridge | US and Canada | 564 m (1,850 ft) | 1929 | Since this bridge was built, the record for longest bridge span has only been held by suspension bridges. |
 |
George Washington Bridge | New York - New Jersey, US | 1,067 m (3,501 ft) | 1931 | The first span longer than 1 km. |
 |
Golden Gate Bridge | California | 1,280 m (4,200 ft) | 1937 | |
 |
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge | New York City, US | 1,298 m (4,259 ft) | 1964 | |
 |
Humber Bridge | United Kingdom | 1,410 m (4,630 ft) | 1981 | |
 |
Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge | Japan | 1,991 m (6,532 ft) | 1998 | The longest span since 1998.
The first main span longer than 1-mile (1.6 km). |
Other record holding suspension bridges
- Si Du River Bridge (People's Republic of China) 2009 The highest bridge in the world (472 m).
- San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge (Eastern Span). The widest bridge in the world (78.74 m) is also the most expensive bridge and the largest self-anchored suspension bridge ever constructed.[107][108]
- Tacoma Narrows Bridges (Washington State) 853 m—1950 & 2007. The pair of bridges with the longest spans in the world (853 m).
- Tsing Ma Bridge (Hong Kong) 1997. The longest span carrying road and rail traffic (1,377 m).
- George Washington Bridge (New York – New Jersey). Suspension bridge with the most lanes of traffic (fourteen total on two levels).
- Kurushima-Kaikyō Bridge (Japan): The world's longest suspension bridge structure
- Great Seto Bridge (Japan): World's longest two-tiered bridge system (note: not all of the spans that make up the bridge system are suspension bridges)
See also
- List of spans (list of remarkable permanent wire spans)
References
- ^ Duan, Lian (2014). "Longest Bridges and Bridge Spans". In Chen, Wai-Fah; Duan, Lian (eds.). Handbook of International Bridge Engineering. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press. p. 1307. ISBN 978-1-4398-1029-3. Retrieved 3 February 2015 – via google books.
The total length often reflects a project size, while the span length commonly correlates with the engineering complexity involved in designing and constructing of the bridge.
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{{cite web}}: External link in|title= - ^ http://www.latercera.com/noticia/nacional/2016/03/680-671951-9-obras-del-puente-chacao-presentan-retrasos-y-dificultades-administrativas.shtml
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- Note: Some of the information posted on the following sites may differ from that above. As of 21 February 2006, the sites were out of date or inaccurate as noted in parenthesis
- Denenberg, David, Bridgemeister.com (an extensive inventory of roughly 2,000 suspension bridges)
- Janberg, Nicolas, Suspension bridges, Structurae.de (an extensive database of structures including many suspension bridges)
- Durkee, Jackson, "World's Longest Bridge Spans", National Steel Bridge Alliance, 24 May 1999 (out of date)
- The World's Greatest Bridges, Archive.org copy of The Bridge over the Strait of Messina website (out of date and other errors)
- List of longest spans, Pub Quiz Help (includes bridges that have not yet been completed)
- Steel bridges in the world, and other bridge statistics, The Swedish Institute of Steel Construction, March 2003 (out of date)
- Virola, Eur Ing Juhani, Two Millennia - Two Long-Span Suspension Bridges, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, ATSE Focus No 124, November/December 2002 (revised information up to date as of 2005)
- Virola, Eur Ing Juhani, World's Longest Bridge Spans Laboratory of Bridge Engineering (LBE), Helsinki University of Technology (includes bridges that have not yet been completed)
Further reading
- Podolny, Jr., Walter; Goodyear, David (2006). "Cable-suspended bridges". In Roger L. Brockenbrough (ed.). Structural steel designer's handbook : AISC, AASHTO, AISI, ASTM, AREMA, and ASCE-07 design standards (4 ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. pp. 15.13–15.16. ISBN 0071432183.—includes a list of major suspension bridges by length
External links
- Progress of Center Span on Long-Span Bridges at the Honshū—Shikoku Bridge Expressway Co.
| Structural types |
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| Lists of bridges by type | ||
| Lists of bridges by size | ||
| Additional lists | ||
| Related | ||
