Please do not treat all infrastructure projects as money blackholes. I'll just contribute a little bit about the Jiaozhou Bay bridge. My grandparents live near

Please do not treat all infrastructure projects as money blackholes. I'll just contribute a little bit about the Jiaozhou Bay bridge. My grandparents live near there. It actually makes much sense if you take a look at the map below: https://www.google.com/maps/@36.070127,120.2319581,82460m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@36.070127,120.2319581,82460m/da... Basically, Qingdao is already a mega city with over 6M population in urban area. But it just cannot expand because it is located on a peninsula (similar to San Francisco) with its back facing a big mountain. So it's kind of natural to expand on the other side for more and cheaper land. So to reach the other land, options are: 1. Connect the tip of the peninsula to the other side. This is shorter but you're connecting city centers together (Brooklyn-alike), which doesn't work well for cargo traffics (Qingdao is also a major seaport). Actually this tunnel is already built and many people use it for commuting. 2. Connect the seaport area inside the bay to the other side. This is what you mentioned. With that, cargo can reach factories on the other side in a faster fashion without crossing the city center. 3. Improve the highways around the bay to handle increased demand. First it's a lot longer, which is something you cannot change. Second it's not cheap either given you need to get more land and might need more time. And 2's price tag is not that high (roughly the same cost as San Francisco - Oakland bay bridge). If you were the decision maker, would you want to build it? BTW, with 1 & 2's open, the other side already officially became part of Qingdao metropolitan area and cross-bay subway will open this year.