Something I read recently said that cable-stayed bridges are the current bridge architecture of choice for many applications. Wikipedia’s article about cable-stayed bridges says that they are optimal for “spans longer than cantilever bridges and shorter than suspension bridges” (a steel truss bridge like the Key Bridge is a kind of cantilever bridge) so it sounds as if that might fit.
I may be wrong about this: I’ve only been an Internet bridge engineer for a few days, having made a shift from my previous recent careers as an aviation safety expert, voting systems guru, and virology pundit.
(The only reason I know what a cable-stayed bridge is at all is because I can see one from my window and I wanted to know what the hell that thing was called).
Now add in the 764 tons (that’s just the hazardous materials they were carrying in 56 containers out of the “nearly 4,700 containers” the ship carried). Sure, you can theoretically make a bridge stand up to that, but it’s insane to do it. It would be more than “somewhat on the expensive side”.
The headroom is around 51 m, depending on the tide. Which used to be more than enough, but as ships are getting larger, there are plans to replace it with a taller bridge like this
