7 Engineers Suspended After Bridge in India Includes Bizarre 90-Degree Turn

[Lyon Wonder]

Granted, this bridge looks like it's only intended for pedestrian foot and bicycle traffic.

7 engineers in India were suspended when the completed bridge included a 90-dgree turn, something completely unacceptable for vehicle traffic but still acceptable for pedestrian foot traffic. I assume the main objection to the 90 turn is the difficultly for people on bicycles to cross the bridge.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7-engineers-suspended-after-2-3-million-bridge-includes-bizarre-90-degree-turn/

Ironically, this overpass would have been perfectly acceptable had it been built a century earlier.

It wasn't unheard of in that era for bridges to have approaches with very sharp angles.

And I'm talking about bridges for automobile traffic, not just pedestrians.

A late 19th century "high" bridge across the Mississippi River at Winona, MN built in the 1890s had a western approach with a couple of 90 degree angles.

I imagine it was a nightmare for early automobiles to drive on and was replaced by a more modern bridge with a straight approach in the early 1940s.

https://www.bridgehunter.com/bridge/79399

[wanderer2575]

* forwarded to humorist Dave Barry's blog *

[1995hoo]

Granted, this bridge looks like it's only intended for pedestrian foot and bicycle traffic.

....

Although the article you linked does include this paragraph: "Photos of the sharp turn, which appears midway through the elevated roadway, exploded on Indian social media, prompting disbelief and concern. Drivers expressed confusion about how to navigate the turn safely. Others wondered how the project even got approved."

[sprjus4]

Looks like a road bridge to me, not a pedestrian bridge.

Obviously construction standards are different in India than in the United States, but it's quite interesting it got this far constructed before someone said, wait a minute it's not supposed to do that.

[kphoger]

Technically, it's "nearly" 90 degrees...

But, seriously, only NOW is Indian Railways transferring the additional bit of land to the Public Works Department?

[Max Rockatansky]

We need more weird highway bridges in this world. Justice for the weird 90 degree bridge engineers and whatever the fuck they were thinking. 

[kphoger]

... whatever the fuck they were thinking. 

They were tasked with designing a bridge across the railway, but the railway didn't give them enough land for a curved approach.  Hence the 90° bend.

[Max Rockatansky]

... whatever the fuck they were thinking. 

They were tasked with designing a bridge across the railway, but the railway didn't give them enough land for a curved approach.  Hence the 90° bend.

So essentially they found a solution to the problem with what resources they had.

[kphoger]

So essentially they found a solution to the problem with what resources they had.

And only after construction was completed, and people started making fun of it, and a government inquiry was opened, did the railway decide to give the public works department additional land.

[1995hoo]

If it were in fact intended solely as a pedestrian/bike bridge, I don't understand why the turn would be a problem. Off the top of my head I can think of two such bridges in Northern Virginia with 90-degree turns at both ends of the main span. One crosses I-95 in Springfield and the other crosses US-50 in Seven Corners. (Those are both Google Maps satellite views to make the 90-degree turns more visible.)

[GaryV]

Three paragraphs into the story:

The 648-meter Rail Over Bridge (ROB) was supposed to connect Mahamai Ka Bagh and New Bhopal, easing congestion and slashing wait times for up to 300,000 daily commuters. Instead, it's become a punchline and a cautionary tale.

So no, it's not a pedestrian/bike bridge, unless that many walkers and bikers are commuting.

[sprjus4]

Three paragraphs into the story:

The 648-meter Rail Over Bridge (ROB) was supposed to connect Mahamai Ka Bagh and New Bhopal, easing congestion and slashing wait times for up to 300,000 daily commuters. Instead, it's become a punchline and a cautionary tale.

So no, it's not a pedestrian/bike bridge, unless that many walkers and bikers are commuting.

300,000 vehicles a DAY???

[hotdogPi]

Three paragraphs into the story:

The 648-meter Rail Over Bridge (ROB) was supposed to connect Mahamai Ka Bagh and New Bhopal, easing congestion and slashing wait times for up to 300,000 daily commuters. Instead, it's become a punchline and a cautionary tale.

So no, it's not a pedestrian/bike bridge, unless that many walkers and bikers are commuting.

300,000 vehicles a DAY???

The description can be accurate if not all the commuters use that road. If 300,000 is the number of commuters in total, people using the new road would free up space on other roads that connect those cities, which still ease congestion and slash wait times for those people.

It's also counting people, not cars. Some cars have more than one person in them.

[sprjus4]

Three paragraphs into the story:

The 648-meter Rail Over Bridge (ROB) was supposed to connect Mahamai Ka Bagh and New Bhopal, easing congestion and slashing wait times for up to 300,000 daily commuters. Instead, it's become a punchline and a cautionary tale.

So no, it's not a pedestrian/bike bridge, unless that many walkers and bikers are commuting.

300,000 vehicles a DAY???

The description can be accurate if not all the commuters use that road. If 300,000 is the number of commuters in total, people using the new road would free up space on other roads that connect those cities, which still ease congestion and slash wait times for those people.

It's also counting people, not cars. Some cars have more than one person in them.

Valid points.

[kphoger]

And some people don't have cars around them.

[Lyon Wonder]

Looks like a road bridge to me, not a pedestrian bridge.

Obviously construction standards are different in India than in the United States, but it's quite interesting it got this far constructed before someone said, wait a minute it's not supposed to do that.

Yeah, thank you for clarifying.

Still isn't suitable for vehicle traffic until a new straight approach is constructed.