Bridges We Hope to Cross

Oil rigs might despoil the wilderness but a good bridge gets a waiver -- that's my feeling. Bridges have physical and symbolic beauty and Sweden has some nice bridges. The Oresund Bridge connects the southern Sweden city of Malmö to Copenhagen, Denmark, finished in 1999. It's the longest bridge in Europe that has both rail and automobile traffic. Wikipedia says "The bridge has one of the longest cable-stayed main spans in the world at 490 metres. The height of the highest pillar is 204 metres. The total length of the bridge is 7,845 metres, which is approximately half the distance between the Swedish and Danish landmasses, and its weight is 82 million kilograms. The rest of the distance is spanned by the artificial island Peberholm (Pepper islet) (4,055 m), named as a counterpart to the already existing Saltholm islet, followed by a tunnel on the Danish side. The tunnel is 4,050 m long, a 3,510 m long buried undersea tunnel plus two 270 m gate tunnels. The two rail-tracks are beneath the four road lanes. The bridge has a vertical clearance of 57 metres, although most boat traffic across Oresund still passes over the Drogden strait (where the tunnel lies). The bridge was designed by Arup."

A bridge in Uppsala (shown to the right) is impressive because it goes under the the water to let boats through. Usually, the bridge would go up to let boats go under or have draw bridge.

I stoll the photo of a "Sweden Bridge" from www.flickr.com. (Actaully I stole all these from flickr). It claims to be the biggest bridge in Sweden. My friend Ulf S. says: "I think the bridge is along the coast in Norrland called Vedabron. That part of the coast is called Hoga Kusten (High Coast)." Thanks Ulf, for identifying the mystery bridge.