Talk:Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge

Misinformation

Someone said it was the second longest bridge over open water, linking to a source that said exactly the opposite (that it's now the longest). Someone else said only 16 miles of the bridge are over open water, but that makes no sense for two reasons: 1) the sources provided say no such thing and 2) a visual look at the map of the bridge shows it all over open water! If I'm mistaken about this I apologize and welcome any corrections from reliable sources. Green Cardamom (talk) 02:27, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

"Dufrechou said the Causeway has engineers looking at satellite images to confirm the precise distance, but he estimates only 16 miles of the new bridge actually run over water. " http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2011/06/causeway_refuses_to_relinquish.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.61.173.74 (talk) 04:37, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok so we have conflicting versions of how to define 'longest over water bridge'. So to remain NPOV we let the sources define it and report on what they say. Since Guinness defined it one way we report that (total span length), and since the previous title owner has its own definition, we report that too, but it doesn't carry as much authority as Guinness (there is no "Lake Ponchartrain Causeway Book of World Records"), and is obviously somewhat self-interested in this particular record whereas Guinness is a more neutral party, thus moved to a controversy section. Green Cardamom (talk) 05:41, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, the Guinness Book Information is in this case obviously wrong. It seems that they mixed up km and mi. If you look on the map, than you will easy find out, that the 26.4 miles of bridge do not fit in the bay, however the length of the span from east to west seems to be 26.4 km.--Pechristener (talk) 21:21, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Another problem is the 15.8km over open water is defined how and who? For example there are some on/off ramps which are separate bridges for long distances over water. Are they included? There are long curves in the bridge. Are they included? Why not or why so? Whose methodology do we use? Finally there is the problem of defining "bridge": is a causeway really comparable to a full bridge? The Causeway cost $26 million in 1969, or $216,021,779 adjusted to current dollars, compared to $1.5 billion for the Chinese bridge. Not that we should judge but clearly this bridge is in a different league in the type and scale of construction. But I guess we won't hear Lake Ponchartrain Causeway making that argument :) Green Cardamom (talk) 06:48, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

"The original holder of the record, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in southern Louisiana, disagrees with Guinness and still claims to be the longest." - The bridge is claiming it's the longest? Woot for sentient, vocal bridges. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.247.228.229 (talk) 04:41, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Speed limit

So it is 42 km long and the travel time is 20 minutes. Driving 126 km/hr on a bridge is the speed limit in China ?Eregli bob (talk) 13:37, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

No, it is definitely not! According to this source the design speed is 60 km/h and the max speed is 80 km/h. If you look on a map you will find that the bridge is not 25.84 mi, but 25.84 km long. This will give you a 20 minutes crossing while driving at 78 km/h. --Pechristener (talk) 21:39, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't the intro just say this is "the longest bridge in the world"?

I'm confused - as of today, the intro says it's one of the longest bridges in the world, but according to our article List of longest bridges in the world, it's simply the longest bridge in the world, and there is no need to hedge by using the almost-weasel term "one of the longest". I'm also confused why the main page mention of today calls it "the world's longest cross-sea bridge", when, again, it seems unnecessary to qualify the record with "cross-sea". The "controversy" section seems riddled with problems, doesn't it? Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:10, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's not the longest bridge in the world. It's the longest bridge over water (BOW) in the world (according to Guinness). There is a longer bridge that goes over land. There is also some controversy about which is the longest BOW as described in the article. Also, this bridge won't be the longest BOW in a few months when another bridge in China opens that is even longer - unless you make the further distinction between road and rail bridge since that new bridge will be rail, but then you have to further qualify between road BOW and rail BOW etc.. So given all the qualifiers and near term status, it makes sense to generalize in the first sentence "one of the longest" - which is uncontroversial and NPOV - then drill down into more detail in the article about who says what, rather than trying to explain it all in the first sentence. Green Cardamom (talk) 20:16, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree, if we don't maintain caution with these descriptions, pretty soon it's going to be "longest bridge over protected swampland between 1-4 PM every third Wednesday, except during late September when endangered owls congregate for celebratory predation." In other words, it's probably good to maintain care in ensuring the description about why the bridge is the longest 'something or other' doesn't dominate the article. After all, this kind of information is of minimal practical value. --50.131.152.251 (talk) 17:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Purpose of bridge?

A bit random of a question ... but, looking at the map, it's hard to see why exactly the bridge was built where it was. Why build a curving bridge across the widest section of a bay? Given the curve of the bridge and the sharp angling of the shores on both sides, it would have been nearly the same distance by car to build roads along the shores plus a much smaller bridge not far from where the tunnel was built (perhaps plus an even smaller second bridge from Hongdao island to Qingdao). Unless the main purpose was simply to set a world record? (But given that this is China, it would hardly surprise me if this was exactly the purpose ...) Benwing (talk) 02:43, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

It does look on first glance like the worst possible choice for crossing the bay. Perhaps there are urban planning factors we don't know about, like building a coastal highway would decrease waterfront property access and value, or high cost of buying right of ways. Or some key points need direct connect. Chinese are known for doing big infrastructure projects cheaply but quality they basically built the new Bay Bridge in San Fran Green Cardamom (talk) 04:36, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Comparisons with other bridges

Regarding this:

By comparison, the now second longest, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel from Hampton Roads to the Delmarva Peninsula in southern Virginia is 23 miles long, some three miles shorter.

No source provided for this comparison. If we compare the length of bridges it has to be from the same source, since measuring bridge lengths is done different ways with different bridges - so to compare them it has to be the same method used for both bridges (thus from the same source). Also, the CBBT is a bridge/tunnel, while this is a bridge only, so it's not really comparable. Finally, the CBBT was never first as suggested by "now second longest", the causeway in LA was first according to Guinness World Records (the only source that's really authoritative in terms of determining "longest"). See also List of longest bridges in the world. Green Cardamom (talk) 02:57, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

"Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge"

I have just deleted per A10 a new article Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge which consisted only of the words "It's a big bridge. Commies made it." and a link to this clip. I am posting here (a) to be 100% sure it's the same bridge and (b) to ask whether that title is a likely search term, in which case I will re-create the article as a redirect. JohnCD (talk) 21:44, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not the same bridge. In fact Danyang–Kunshan Grand Bridge is the longest bridge in the world, and there is no Wikipedia article for it. I meant to start one but never got around to it yet. Anyway, different bridge. Green Cardamom (talk) 01:18, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Length of bridge

There are sources that say the bridge is 41km long. For example the Chinese Wikipedia[1] reports it as such citing this Chinese language news source.[2] The reason it would be longer than it appears on the map is because determining the length of a bridge is not an exact science but a matter of interpretation and definition. Since it is composed of two spans the total length may be double, I don't know but it seems like we might need to report both lengths since so many sources give the longer length, and only one known source gives the shorter length. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 14:37, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe it's possible the reason Guinness is stating 41km is due to the "aggregate" definition which would include all spans. The bridge is complicated with more than two spans. They may have decided to add up the total length of all spans and make a new category for "aggregate". So Guinness is right in its way about the longer length, but by single span measurement the shorter length would be more accurate. That is my current thinking but still looking. It's possible Guinness messed up on the metric conversion also, but unclear if so, have reason to think not based on the history of how Guinness added the records to its website. Green Cardamom (talk) 15:47, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that there is some confusion about the length of this bridge, but I guess we should carefully avoid that misinformation is cemented and fortified by Wikipedia. True that most sources cite 42 km, so we have to find out where it comes from and write our findings in the article.

More research revealed that the company who built and operate the bridge is Shadong Hi-Speed Group. On this page we find both length: 28 km and 42 km. This company operates the complete toll expressway project called Expressway Bridge and Tunnel project of Qingdao, which includes the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge and the Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay tunnel. The complete toll expressway looks like this [3], not everything is built yet.

It seems that the total length of the planed Expressway Bridge and Tunnel project of Qingdao is 42 km. This project include the 28 km Jiaozhou Bay Bridge & access road, the 9.5 km of the Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay tunnel and some not yet built section, which match exactly this source cited by Chinese Wikipedia, where it states that only 36.48 kilometers of the 41.58 km are in operation.

There are other sources stating botht length, like this one herehere. The translations seems to be confused, but you can still read the 28.8 km for the bridge expressway.

I do not think that the 42 km come from counting each line as a single span since this would be rather unusual and would lead to length of at least 57.4 km (counting the T-section as well, but not counting the ramps of the intersections) or 61 km (counting all the ramps). By the way in this case the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway would be a 77 km bridge, since this bridge has also two separate spans. This means, that even if Guinness introduced a new category, it is still wrong. --Pechristener (talk) 09:53, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Excellent research, This makes sense and I concur that the longer length is for the entire Expressway Bridge and Tunnel project of Qingdao is the most likely explanation. In fact this source (archived) says (in broken English):

South tunnel north bridge "program, the Bay port construction of a 6.17 km south of the Cross Harbour Tunnel in Jiaozhou Bay, Jiaozhou Bay, the construction of a 35.4 km north of Bay Bridge between Qingdao - HUANGDAO, traffic, and led the Red Island and other regional development and building a "three-point layout, front-line to start the Cluster Development of the" big city framework.

35.4 + 6.17 = 41.57 which is nearly a match for our 41.58 number reported in other sources. It looks like the tunnel portion is 6.17 and the bridge portion is 35.4. The same source reports that, for the bridge portion, 26.75 is offshore (over water), 5.85 is Qingdao land side, 0.9 bridges and roads of the red cliffs, 1.9 Red Island. So, 26.75+5.85+0.9+1.9 = 35.4 a perfect match. The math works. Green Cardamom (talk) 14:38, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Red Island is actually Huangdao Island. The 5.85 mi Qingdao land side section will be also on my map, you can see it on Google just on the East side of the toll plaza. --Pechristener (talk) 20:33, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Guinness record

The Guinness record seemed odd so I contacted Guinness to confirm and this was the response:

Thank you for your due diligence and follow up on this. Our records team has reviewed this and worked with consultants and the Jiaozhou Bridge still holds the record for longest bridge over water (aggregate length) and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway holds the record for the longest bridge over water (continuous). We are aware that the Jiaozhou Bridge is not entirely over water which is why we broke this record into the two separate categories.

I further responded that even so, the aggregate length doesn't fully make sense since it includes the tunnel section which is in an entirely different part of the city and doesn't connect to the bridge roadway. Will see if/how they respond. Green Cardamom (talk) 16:10, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Bridge length (again)

The bridge length numbers are not consistent in different parts of the article. Should we favor one source over another, or just give a variety of numbers? They are all pretty close, but it reads oddly when not consistent. Thanks. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:04, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

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traffic

According to this source [4] the bridge is "completely unnecessary in the area and it hardly sees any traffic". Is this true? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.187.245.100 (talk) 05:46, 31 March 2017 (UTC)