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Two tiny little countries in the Middle East are combining forces to show up the rest of the world by the longest bridge ever. It will 1,215 blue whales long! Cetaceans aren’t your preferred distance metric? That’s 24 miles. Or about 40 km for all you highfalutin’ metric types. Construction was originally supposed to start last year, but has been delayed until next year.

MENA Infrastructure has created a cool infographic about the project (click on the image above for a larger version).

Actually, the bridge portion proper is only about 13 miles. The other 11 miles are causeway. (But editors loathe words like “causeway.” )

The neat infographic show how this yet-to-be-built Friendship Bridge matches up against other long bridges around the world. (Spoiler alert: It beats them all.)

When completed it will allow people to drive from Bahrain to Qatar in just 40 minutes — down from the current four-hour slog. Projections are for 10,000 -12,000 cars a day.

But it’s not just a proposition for drivers, in fact — you will also be able to take the train, because the bridge/causeway will feature “a 13-meter wide railroad bridge.” We weren’t aware any country in the middle east had much of an installed rail network (excepting Dubai’s new metro) — but maybe Qatar and Bahrain are trying to rectify that situation.

We have to marvel at the pricetag though — only $3 billion for a 24-mile bridge. That sounds suspect. Consider for instance that replacing the 3-mile Tappan Zee bridge (and including rail) is expected to cost $16 billion. The Tappan Zee is much more heavily trafficked and it’s New York, where everything is ripoff — but still, only $3 billion for a 25-mile bridge?

Yesterday, Barry Ritholz–whose Big Picture blog we’ve been a fan of for many years–posted this chart of world’s busiest ports. The first thing that might jump out at you is that the highest ranking US facility comes in at #13. Indeed, there are only two ports  in the West (Rotterdam and Hamburg) in the top 10.

Why, as the world’s largest importer, doesn’t the US have any of the world’s largest ports? Well, notice that the Long Beach and LA are considered separate facilities. While that’s accurate in an administrative sense, it’s functionally one big port, as this aerial view shows (the entrance to the Port of LA is marked with a purple pin and Long Beach a red one):

Another thing that we’d note is that this measure only accounts for container traffic — that is, manufactured stuff. So ports that see more bulk commodities or oil tankers don’t show up on this scale. China, which fills the shelves of Wal-Mart with disposable hair dryers and $200 plasma teevees, looks like even more of a superpower than they already are.

That said, the volumes that are being (or, rather, were being in 2007) shipped out of China are just stunning. Throughput in the Shanghai port nearly doubled between 2004 and 2007 to about 13 million shipping containers, which can weigh 25 tons each, fully loaded. That’s one 40-foot container every other second, 24/365–all from a single facility. Nationwide, the volumes are about 10 times greater.

That has certainly fallen off with the global recepression, and the current estimates are that Shanghai’s container volume this year will be about 10 percent below 2007 levels and about 20 percent below projections. But after an abyssmal first half of the year, levels seems to be picking up again and are only a smidge lower than they were last year at this time– at which point, you might recall, Lehman Bros still existed and the phrase “stimulus package” would have just sounded naughty.

Megaprojects are the multi-billion dollar infrastructural undertakings that, when completed, play a major role in organizing our daily lives. They serve as vital conduits for the movement of our cars, trains, and water; they transport the gas later burned to create our electricity and heat; they allow for the shipping of goods from one side of the planet to the other.

Many of the world’s most iconic megaprojects were built in the first half of the 20 century. But are we now entering a new golden age of megaprojects for a more populous, more sustainable world? Here is a sampling of five of the world’s most expensive and complex projects underway today.

5. Expanding the Panama Canal

Before 1914, freight-laden ships needed to sail around the tip of South America to get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. The carving of the Panama Canal cut down trip distances dramatically — from 14,000 miles between New York and San Francisco before to 6,000 after. The project, then, was a brilliant innovation in reducing the cost of international trade. And it was popular.

In fact, today it’s so popular that it’s rapidly running out of space: by 2012, there’s likely to be more traffic than the canal can handle. In response to the oncoming logjam, in 2006, Panama’s voters endorsed a $5.25 billion plan to double the artificial river’s capacity by 2014, and the country began preparations in 2007. The project will be one of the largest canal programs in human history, employing up to 40,000 construction workers building a 4 mile-long access channel and brand new locks on both the Atlantic and Pacific. Once the dredging is done, there should be few capacity problems for decades.

(more…)

With our top transportation official lauding Americans for their improvements in seat belt use, we decided to review the top and bottom of the class, according to new 2008 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The states with the highest rates of use:

1. Michigan - 97.2%
2. Hawaii - 97.0%
3. Washington - 96.5%
4. Oregon - 96.3%
5. California - 95.7%

The statistical stragglers:

45. Rhode Island - 72%
46. S. Dakota - 71.8
47. Mississippi - 71.3%
48. N.H. - 69.2
49. Wyoming - 68.6%
50. Massachusetts - 66.8%

Maybe can conclude that Pacific breezes (and the freezing winds of Lake Michigan) inspire people to buckle up, while a Yankee independent streak leads them not to. But Massachusetts, in particular, is a surprise for worst-in-class. In most statistical categories (education, income, etc.), the state tends to be an overachiever. And yet only two-thirds of these bookish, well-to-do drivers are buckling up?

Assuming that the measurement mechanism is solid and the same in all states (photo analysis from roadside cameras, maybe?), the explanation probably comes down to cultural factors and how diligent local authorities are about enforcement.

Drawing on personal experience for a moment, I grew up in New Hampshire and will admit to being a less than model user of seat belts. But I never got cited there or in Massachusetts, where I also lived for a while. More recently, I spent a couple of years in Iowa, which has a high seat belt use rate. Within a month or two of moving to the state, I got an $80 citation. Subsequently, my habits improved considerably.

(Photo via: AlanCaldwell on Flickr)

Do more people ride the subway in NYC or Mexico City? Which has a more expensive fare, Seoul or Moscow?

Go look at this beautiful chart comparing usage, system length, and fares for rail transit systems around the world. It’s another from our friends over at Good magazine who have one of the best-looking publications you’ll ever see.

It’ll keep you entertained for a while.