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On that note about bridges; When I was in Cuba, the tour guide made a special note to point out this bridge they had that connected one part of the island to an

by jbob2000 10y ago

On that note about bridges; When I was in Cuba, the tour guide made a special note to point out this bridge they had that connected one part of the island to another over a large valley. Apparently it was a big deal to get this bridge built? The Russians built it for them in the 80s, but before that, it was a nightmare moving around. It didn't look like much to me, a regular bridge that I've seen a thousand times here in Canada. It put in perspective for me how expensive bridges really are. They couldn't afford to build one, crucial bridge. It took a major super power to do it.

VLM 10y ago
I pulled the data and superficially a random square mile of Cuba is about 100x more likely to get hit with a mag 7 earthquake than a similar square in Canada gets hit by a mag 6. Cuba gets spanked every two or three decades with a serious mag 7 or so. Your 80s bridge survived the '92 quake, assuming you saw it after '92 of course. That was a biggie. Earthquake proof bridges are no joke to build.
yardie 10y ago
If you want to see a bridge that is a real marvel you should see the Millau Aqueduct in France. It's considered the tallest bridge in the world. And at 400mm€ it wasn't all that expensive. I don't consider France to be a superpower and they didn't need to rely on anyone else to get it built. The difference between that project and the bridge in Cuba is more likely expertise. After the revolution loads of finances, academics, engineers, and doctors left the country. Cuba has plenty of medical expertise, so much so that outside of US and Canada, they are the developing countries' hospital. But I don't think anyone is going to them for civil construction projects. They just don't have that expertise.
fennecfoxen 10y ago
> It put in perspective for me how expensive bridges really are. I don't think it's particularly effective to go about judging costs by a banana-republic Communist dictatorship which went and deliberately destroyed its economy (+) and replaced it with one controlled by Party loyalists. It's just not a particularly effective way to make anything happen at all: it focuses on getting adequate wealth and substantial power to the people on the top, and doesn't care much care about things on the bottom except as necessary to keep the peace. If you go judging things by that standard, you could equally say that it puts in perspective just how expensive food is, because when the USSR pulled its support, Cuba came perilously close to starvation. Or housing - have you seen central Havana? That's not even a matter of building, just basic maintenance... (+) Destroyed its economy in part to rid itself of Mafia infiltration from the Batista regime's days, which may have been a reasonable thing... if they'd left things in a free state instead of just replacing it with another little oligarchy.

VLM 10y ago

I pulled the data and superficially a random square mile of Cuba is about 100x more likely to get hit with a mag 7 earthquake than a similar square in Canada gets hit by a mag 6. Cuba gets spanked every two or three decades with a serious mag 7 or so. Your 80s bridge survived the '92 quake, assuming you saw it after '92 of course. That was a biggie. Earthquake proof bridges are no joke to build.

yardie 10y ago

If you want to see a bridge that is a real marvel you should see the Millau Aqueduct in France. It's considered the tallest bridge in the world. And at 400mm€ it wasn't all that expensive. I don't consider France to be a superpower and they didn't need to rely on anyone else to get it built. The difference between that project and the bridge in Cuba is more likely expertise. After the revolution loads of finances, academics, engineers, and doctors left the country. Cuba has plenty of medical expertise, so much so that outside of US and Canada, they are the developing countries' hospital. But I don't think anyone is going to them for civil construction projects. They just don't have that expertise.

fennecfoxen 10y ago

> It put in perspective for me how expensive bridges really are. I don't think it's particularly effective to go about judging costs by a banana-republic Communist dictatorship which went and deliberately destroyed its economy (+) and replaced it with one controlled by Party loyalists. It's just not a particularly effective way to make anything happen at all: it focuses on getting adequate wealth and substantial power to the people on the top, and doesn't care much care about things on the bottom except as necessary to keep the peace. If you go judging things by that standard, you could equally say that it puts in perspective just how expensive food is, because when the USSR pulled its support, Cuba came perilously close to starvation. Or housing - have you seen central Havana? That's not even a matter of building, just basic maintenance... (+) Destroyed its economy in part to rid itself of Mafia infiltration from the Batista regime's days, which may have been a reasonable thing... if they'd left things in a free state instead of just replacing it with another little oligarchy.