Found the below image on Google Maps back when I-269 was still under construction.
How often do they build a pair of bridges first, and the road after?
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.8700993,-89.9249922,3a,40.1y,192.51h,92.45t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sqx6Os2nLpWDvSuvZfyaHBQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Three locations in New Jersey and New York immediately came to mind:
New Jersey: https://goo.gl/maps/RLcCNFvQV5nq6XxLA
Staten Island: https://goo.gl/maps/FXjXYc8XY7kjHhJX6
Also Staten Island (now demolished): https://goo.gl/maps/zr1Q7TB8MqfpjVZs6
The K-10 bridge over US 59 in Kansas was up for a loooooooooong time before the segment of K-10 that actually uses it opened. https://goo.gl/maps/9zTHuCUqs6QrLcQF7
Seemingly this was the preferred method of construction by the California Division of Highways since I see it so often in the 1924-67 California Highways & Public Works volumes.
A little different than the OP example because there was a lot more earthwork involved, but future US 15 over existing US 15 (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8905519,-76.8447801,3a,42.5y,149.29h,87.8t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1szDfcb1yELHJSlbYPxh5WFg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e1) in Winfield, PA, has been built for a few years now and still isn't open to traffic yet.
The PA 23 Lancaster-Norristown Expressway, now known as the Goat Path...a probable case of bridges first, road never...
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0692837,-76.206873,506m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
Not exactly the same, but I've seen pre-built bridges in several places over the years, usually along with a stretch of unopened road attatched. Here's a longstanding one for a US-52 bypass of Bluefield, West Virginia:
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.277428,-81.1674996,15z/data=!3m1!1e3
They did this on the Greensboro Urban Loop at the I-840/I-785/US-29 interchange:
https://www.google.com/maps/@36.142626,-79.7342442,15z/data=!3m1!1e3
It was also done on I-485 at I-77 and NC-115 where a few bridges sat unopened for years before the final segment opened.
Kentucky has done this with its construction of the new alignment of US 460 (Corridor Q), and Virginia did as well when it built the bridge near the state line.
The bridges for the northern I-96/I-69 interchange were built long before the ramp roadways (early 1980's). It looked like random bridges placed in the fields.
Also makes me think of the infamous bridges to nowhere on I-84 in CT that were eventually and partially incorporated into its interchange with CT 9.
UT 7 has had a roadless bridge between Exits 7 and 10 for about five years now:
(https://i.imgur.com/PkHz8do.png)
It's a future railroad bridge for when the Alaska Railroad gets extended to Delta Junction and possibly to the lower 48, being used in a very limited way as a multi-use bridge for military training and hunter access for the time being. The railroad is not going to be built for the foreseeable future.
https://www.facebook.com/aaroads/posts/the-tanana-river-bridge-near-salcha-alaska-is-alaskas-longest-bridge-with-a-leng/10157554941752948/
There's things like this, where a pair of bridges has a wider median than the existing road, like over the Cedar River on I-80 in Iowa:
(https://i.imgur.com/iRvZMmW.png)
Rock Creek Road over I-35 in Norman in 2009—2010:
(https://i.imgur.com/wXHqFbZ.jpg)
How about an entire interchange that has sat unused for 2 years because the approaches aren't finished:
(https://highwaysengland.co.uk/media/dd5flhwg/m49_-avonmouth_carousel_image1.jpg)
Source: https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/unusable-m49-junction-causing-misery-21493748
I remember the I-494 bridges being up over MN 13 in Eagan long before 494 itself was built there.
For the upcoming I-490 in IL, the bridge over I-90 has been up for over a year, and now building roads to/from it, to be opened in 2 years.
Quote from: Rothman on October 13, 2021, 12:03:13 PM
Also makes me think of the infamous bridges to nowhere on I-84 in CT that were eventually and partially incorporated into its interchange with CT 9.
And the ("future") CT 11 bridge over CT 82 in Salem that has sat unused for almost 50 years.
IIRC, there were some bridges in Howard County Maryland along MD-32 that may have been there as early as the late 1970s, but the freeway itself was not constructed until the early 1980s, and did not open until 1985.
The I-5 / I-90 interchange was built in the 1960s (with I-5 opening in early 1967), but the ramps were unused until the late 1980s when I-90 was built around Beacon Hill.
(https://i.imgur.com/kLFslEo.jpg)
And of course, we had the abandoned ghost ramps of the R H Thomson Expressway in the arboretum, jutting out from SR 520. Built in the 1960s and demolished a few years ago:
Quote from: Bruce on October 13, 2021, 07:58:38 PM
How about an entire interchange that has sat unused for 2 years because the approaches aren't finished:
(https://highwaysengland.co.uk/media/dd5flhwg/m49_-avonmouth_carousel_image1.jpg)
Source: https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/unusable-m49-junction-causing-misery-21493748
That looks like an elevated race track!
The AL 157 bridge across the Tennessee River in Florence, AL was completed a few years before any road leading to it was built. I can't remember the exact years. but it was in the 00's.
The 2nd Carriageway of US 50 across IL had multiple bridges built decades ago on the 4 Lane Divided ROW, but the project was cancelled and these bridges are unused to this day
I love that road hidden in the roundabout.
(https://i.imgur.com/euJlRU3.jpg)
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on October 15, 2021, 01:58:47 PM
I love that road hidden in the roundabout.
(https://i.imgur.com/euJlRU3.jpg)
That would be the footpath as they call it over there.
In Northeast Ohio, I-480's two tallest bridges (Valley View Bridge over the Cuyahoga River and the bridge near the Airport over the Rocky River were both built well before the roadways on either side of the bridge existed.
In Pittsburgh, the Fort Duquesne bridge was dangling on one side with no further spans nor abutments, thus it was called The Bridge to Nowhere.
Quote from: Bruce on October 15, 2021, 09:54:55 PM
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on October 15, 2021, 01:58:47 PM
I love that road hidden in the roundabout.
(https://i.imgur.com/euJlRU3.jpg)
That would be the footpath as they call it over there.
Ah. I thought is was a road for local traffic.
The bridges built for the "new" US 231 (now US 231 and 52) near Lafayette, Indiana (including the one over the Wabash River and 2 rail overpasses of the future highway) were disconnected from anything for 5 years+ until the road was built and finally opened in summer 2001. For several years driving down South River Road, you could see the bridges across a field going nowhere.