Johnson

Claire Johnson Oresund Bridge

The Oresund Bridge crosses the Oresund Strait connecting Denmark to Sweden, but because of the air traffic over the strait, the bridge stops halfway through the strait and turns into a tunnel. The bridge combines a 4 lane highway with 2 lanes of train tracks. The Oresund Bridge is the longest of its kind in the world. Construction for the bridge started in 1995 and was finished in 1999. The bridge was needed because it cut four hours off the commute from Denmark to Sweden or vice versa. the bridge itself spans over 25,00 feet. The tunnel spans just of 13,000 feet. The Oresund Bridge is a cable stayed bridge built mostly out of concrete and steel and it costed 3.1 billion dollars to build. During the building of the bridge the engineers found 16 unexploded World War II bombs and an unfinished tunnel segment embedded in sea floor. They also faced many challenges both structural and cultural. Cultural because they were connecting two very different countires. To learn more about these challenges watch the 5 part video sequence below. Despite these challenges construction was finished 3 months ahead of schedule. The bridge toll is around $53. The Oresund Bridge is the longest cable stayed bridge in the world. If you have a Google Docs account, Click here to see a powerpoint about the Oresund Bridge. media type="googlemap" key="http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&q=oresund+bridge&oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF8&hl=en&split=1&filter=0&rq=2&ev=p&sll=55.498127,13.08957&sspn=0.170792,0.51027&hq=oresund+bridge&hnear=&ll=55.605893,12.824478&spn=0.178033,0.566483&layer=c&cbll=55.573926,12.83229&panoid=wkGwCJcOTyVDWCtEWmd3hA&cbp=12,302.1,,0,6.41&source=embed&output=svembed" width="425" height="350"media type="youtube" key="bQrWIRYIk5A" height="360" width="449" If you would like to continue watching the video, here are the next four parts. [|Part Two] [|Part Three] [|Part Four] [|Part Five]