7 ms·

According to the article this bridge cost €2.3MM to build, which seems crazy cheap, even for Portugal. Does that sound low to anyone else?

jerzyt 5y ago
I opened the comments specifically to see if anyone else thought the price was unrealistic. I'd be surprised if that price would even cover the cost of materials.
- sk1459 5y ago
  Article says 1700lf and looks about 4ft wide, so that’s 6800ft of bridge deck. At $2.8M that would mean they spent $412/sf of deck. Where I live, the state DOT spends about $150/sf of bridge deck for traffic rated bridges. I’ve gotten prices for prefab ped bridges as low as $110 delivered (still have to pay a half-dozen guys for labor and the cost of a crane to place). I guess there were some special construction challenges, but $415/sf is hardly a bargain for a bridge at first blush. That may be low in some places where capital improvement costs are basically just graft.
ab_testing 5y ago
It does sound awfully cheap to me. For reference, if you ever been to Las Vegas and walked on those pedestrian bridges on the strip , the approximate price tag of those 15 years back was around $20 million. https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2004/dec/09/cost-of-pedestrian-bridges-limiting-where-theyre-b/ https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2004/dec/09/cost-of-pedestria...
- listenallyall 5y ago
  They all have multiple elevators and escalators, are sturdy enough to handle hundreds of people simultaneously, and were constructed over some of the busiest roadways in the world. Not really apples to apples.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Ekaros 5y ago
Doesn't sound too unrealistic. It's long but not very big. 1.2m in width. That does make quite a big difference in cost. So it's more of an walkway than proper bridge.
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
This reads like a puff piece, so I second your skepticism.
eliseumds 5y ago
Yes, it sounds low to me. In Brazil they've have spent 10x that and would never finish it.
- megablast 5y ago
  Well, give us an example then?
  - cgriswald 5y ago
    https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/viaduct-petrobras https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/viaduct-petrobras
  - eliseumds 5y ago
    https://brasil.estadao.com.br/noticias/rio-de-janeiro,teleferico-do-alemao-fara-dez-anos-parado-depredado-e-sem-perspectivas-de-voltar,70003690022 https://brasil.estadao.com.br/noticias/rio-de-janeiro,telefe... https://istoe.com.br/447384_A+CICLOVIA+MAIS+CARA+DO+MUNDO/ https://istoe.com.br/447384_A+CICLOVIA+MAIS+CARA+DO+MUNDO/ http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/78-noticias/579871-o-desastroso-legado-da-copa-do-mundo-de-futebol-de-2014 http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/78-noticias/579871-o-desastroso-l... https://www.otempo.com.br/politica/mp-faz-operacao-para-apurar-superfaturamento-em-obras-da-cidade-administrativa-1.2389037 https://www.otempo.com.br/politica/mp-faz-operacao-para-apur...
csomar 5y ago
Maybe because it's a pedestrian bridge? Cars are way too heavier (and you usually have 4 lanes)
- wiredfool 5y ago
  Cars are lighter than people, because people pack much more tightly than cars do. People have a design load in the 100psf range, cars are about half that. (Source - I designed a pedestrian bridge in Seattle before leaving civil engineering)
  - ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
    Is it also more ornerous to control for oscillations in pedestrian bridges? Does that require extra structure, or just tuning?
    - wiredfool 5y ago
      Yes and no. It's certainly something to think about when you have an 'interesting' design that pushes the limits somewhere, and pedestrian bridges often are have that sort of arty component. Or, you don't and it's embarrassing if there's a resonance in the 1-2 second range. Most road bridges just aren't that interesting. They're a concrete slab on a girder, either steel or precast, depending on your local construction environment. (As my bridge wasn't structurally terribly interesting in the end, the biggest issues were clearance with the railroad below while fitting into the height profile we needed for the surface, given the 100yr old elevated structure we were connecting to. That and the extremely low quality soils at the site)
mcpherrinm 5y ago
In comparison, a 300 meter utility pipes and pedestrian suspension bridge in Canada cost $12M CAD (approx €8M) a few years ago. It was wider and stronger than this one to support the pipelines, and also required larger towers to support it on either end, which are surely a large part of the cost. So it doesn't seem unreasonably cheap.
saagarjha 5y ago
For comparison, the Don Burnett Bicycle-Pedestrian Bridge over 280 cost just shy of $15 million, and is about 150 m long.
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
A 110 foot (33.5m) long pedestrian bridge in Atlanta cost over USD$23 million. Part of the cost was to get it ready in time for the Super Bowl. Due to security concerns, it was cordoned off and no one was permitted to use it during the Super Bowl.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Yeah, that sounds more like what I was expecting!
owenversteeg 5y ago
It sounded very cheap, and then I looked up what these types of bridges normally cost, and now it sounds expensive. The former world's longest pedestrian bridge, the Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge in Switzerland, cost 720k Francs - and that was built in the Alps, with Swiss labor costs (Switzerland has the highest minimum wage in the world.) By contrast, the minimum wage in Portugal is the lowest in Western Europe by far, at 665 euros (!!!) per month. It's not like this bridge was built in particularly inhospitable terrain or something - it ends less than 300 meters from a paved road. The Swiss bridge appears to be 1750 meters from the closest road. The bridges are very similar lengths - 494m vs 516m - and similar construction. So why did the Portugese bridge cost 3.5x more?
- askonomm 5y ago
  As with most southern European countries, the answer is corruption.
  - ithkuil 5y ago
    Geierlay suspension bridge in Germany is 360 meters, costed 1.2 million euros. I guess germany is in southern europe too.
    - stkdump 5y ago
      Pretty sure Germany has more corruption than Switzerland. It is just better hidden than in southern europe. In this case I think Switzerland is the outlier though. The country is extremely efficient with alpine infrastructure.
      - ithkuil 5y ago
        Or could it perhaps just be that the requirements of the bridges are different? Things like oscillation tolerance, minimum width etc. Perhaps dictated by local laws and/or the kind of target public they want to attract, the average number of days a year the weather would permit transit etc etc ?
globular-toast 5y ago
Puts into perspective how expensive car bridges really are.

jerzyt 5y ago

I opened the comments specifically to see if anyone else thought the price was unrealistic. I'd be surprised if that price would even cover the cost of materials.

sk1459 5y ago
Article says 1700lf and looks about 4ft wide, so that’s 6800ft of bridge deck. At $2.8M that would mean they spent $412/sf of deck. Where I live, the state DOT spends about $150/sf of bridge deck for traffic rated bridges. I’ve gotten prices for prefab ped bridges as low as $110 delivered (still have to pay a half-dozen guys for labor and the cost of a crane to place). I guess there were some special construction challenges, but $415/sf is hardly a bargain for a bridge at first blush. That may be low in some places where capital improvement costs are basically just graft.

ab_testing 5y ago

It does sound awfully cheap to me. For reference, if you ever been to Las Vegas and walked on those pedestrian bridges on the strip , the approximate price tag of those 15 years back was around $20 million. https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2004/dec/09/cost-of-pedestrian-bridges-limiting-where-theyre-b/ https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2004/dec/09/cost-of-pedestria...

listenallyall 5y ago
They all have multiple elevators and escalators, are sturdy enough to handle hundreds of people simultaneously, and were constructed over some of the busiest roadways in the world. Not really apples to apples.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Ekaros 5y ago

Doesn't sound too unrealistic. It's long but not very big. 1.2m in width. That does make quite a big difference in cost. So it's more of an walkway than proper bridge.

ErikVandeWater 5y ago

This reads like a puff piece, so I second your skepticism.

eliseumds 5y ago

Yes, it sounds low to me. In Brazil they've have spent 10x that and would never finish it.

megablast 5y ago
Well, give us an example then?
- cgriswald 5y ago
  https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/viaduct-petrobras https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/viaduct-petrobras
- eliseumds 5y ago
  https://brasil.estadao.com.br/noticias/rio-de-janeiro,teleferico-do-alemao-fara-dez-anos-parado-depredado-e-sem-perspectivas-de-voltar,70003690022 https://brasil.estadao.com.br/noticias/rio-de-janeiro,telefe... https://istoe.com.br/447384_A+CICLOVIA+MAIS+CARA+DO+MUNDO/ https://istoe.com.br/447384_A+CICLOVIA+MAIS+CARA+DO+MUNDO/ http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/78-noticias/579871-o-desastroso-legado-da-copa-do-mundo-de-futebol-de-2014 http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/78-noticias/579871-o-desastroso-l... https://www.otempo.com.br/politica/mp-faz-operacao-para-apurar-superfaturamento-em-obras-da-cidade-administrativa-1.2389037 https://www.otempo.com.br/politica/mp-faz-operacao-para-apur...

csomar 5y ago

Maybe because it's a pedestrian bridge? Cars are way too heavier (and you usually have 4 lanes)

wiredfool 5y ago
Cars are lighter than people, because people pack much more tightly than cars do. People have a design load in the 100psf range, cars are about half that. (Source - I designed a pedestrian bridge in Seattle before leaving civil engineering)
- ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
  Is it also more ornerous to control for oscillations in pedestrian bridges? Does that require extra structure, or just tuning?
  - wiredfool 5y ago
    Yes and no. It's certainly something to think about when you have an 'interesting' design that pushes the limits somewhere, and pedestrian bridges often are have that sort of arty component. Or, you don't and it's embarrassing if there's a resonance in the 1-2 second range. Most road bridges just aren't that interesting. They're a concrete slab on a girder, either steel or precast, depending on your local construction environment. (As my bridge wasn't structurally terribly interesting in the end, the biggest issues were clearance with the railroad below while fitting into the height profile we needed for the surface, given the 100yr old elevated structure we were connecting to. That and the extremely low quality soils at the site)

mcpherrinm 5y ago

In comparison, a 300 meter utility pipes and pedestrian suspension bridge in Canada cost $12M CAD (approx €8M) a few years ago. It was wider and stronger than this one to support the pipelines, and also required larger towers to support it on either end, which are surely a large part of the cost. So it doesn't seem unreasonably cheap.

saagarjha 5y ago

For comparison, the Don Burnett Bicycle-Pedestrian Bridge over 280 cost just shy of $15 million, and is about 150 m long.

Mountain_Skies 5y ago

A 110 foot (33.5m) long pedestrian bridge in Atlanta cost over USD$23 million. Part of the cost was to get it ready in time for the Super Bowl. Due to security concerns, it was cordoned off and no one was permitted to use it during the Super Bowl.

Aeolun 5y ago
Yeah, that sounds more like what I was expecting!

owenversteeg 5y ago

It sounded very cheap, and then I looked up what these types of bridges normally cost, and now it sounds expensive. The former world's longest pedestrian bridge, the Charles Kuonen Suspension Bridge in Switzerland, cost 720k Francs - and that was built in the Alps, with Swiss labor costs (Switzerland has the highest minimum wage in the world.) By contrast, the minimum wage in Portugal is the lowest in Western Europe by far, at 665 euros (!!!) per month. It's not like this bridge was built in particularly inhospitable terrain or something - it ends less than 300 meters from a paved road. The Swiss bridge appears to be 1750 meters from the closest road. The bridges are very similar lengths - 494m vs 516m - and similar construction. So why did the Portugese bridge cost 3.5x more?

askonomm 5y ago
As with most southern European countries, the answer is corruption.
- ithkuil 5y ago
  Geierlay suspension bridge in Germany is 360 meters, costed 1.2 million euros. I guess germany is in southern europe too.
  - stkdump 5y ago
    Pretty sure Germany has more corruption than Switzerland. It is just better hidden than in southern europe. In this case I think Switzerland is the outlier though. The country is extremely efficient with alpine infrastructure.
    - ithkuil 5y ago
      Or could it perhaps just be that the requirements of the bridges are different? Things like oscillation tolerance, minimum width etc. Perhaps dictated by local laws and/or the kind of target public they want to attract, the average number of days a year the weather would permit transit etc etc ?

globular-toast 5y ago

Puts into perspective how expensive car bridges really are.