This is the best NSFW explanation of the Florida bridge collapse

[Otherbrother]

@TheirFeldspars

I keep reading that the pylon and cables were supposed to be essentially decorative. That makes no sense. You don’t build the deck of a suspension bridge and then later add the suspension cables, because it would fall down and go boom.

I don’t know all the details in the particular case but you’d be surprised how often pylons, cables, and other structural-looking features are added to beam-type bridges for purely aesthetic reasons. The process goes like this: elected officials solicit proposals for an iconic bridge design to bring prestige to their local region or municipality. Architects come back with a number of amazing, innovative designs that would also go well over the allotted budget. Civil Engineers are then tasked to “value engineer” the design and come back with a solution that can be built in the allowable budget and still preserve as much of the creative intent as possible. The solution is often to build a boring beam bridge (often the most cost effective these days) then slap a bunch of unnecessary features on it.