Longest Bridge Controversy July 2011
For decades Lake Pontchartrain Causeway was listed by Guinness World Records as the longest bridge over water in the world. In July 2011 the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in China was named by Guinness as the 'longest bridge over water'. At that time there was some controversy in the USA as the former holder of the record, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, disagreed with Guinness and still called itself the longest. It made this claim by ruling on the title according to its own definition — that is, how much of a bridge is physically over water, saying that the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge spans water for 25.9 kilometres (16.1 mi) while Lake Pontchartrain Causeway spans 38.28 kilometres (23.79 mi). Shandon Hi-Speed group, the company that built the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, says its sea crossing length is actually 25.171 kilometres (15.641 mi). Nevertheless, Guinness World Records stated that the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge is 42.5 kilometres (26.4 mi) long by including other aggregate structures such as land bridges on the ends, and an under-sea tunnel in another part of the city that was part of the same Jiaozhou Bay Connection Project.
In July 2011, Guinness created two categories for bridges over water: continuous and aggregate lengths over water. Lake Pontchartrain Causeway then became the longest bridge over water (continuous) while Jiaozhou Bay Bridge became the longest bridge over water (aggregate).
Read more about this topic: Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
Famous quotes containing the words longest, bridge, controversy and/or july:
“The longest day must have its close—the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O, my soul.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“All the experts here ... say “There will be no war.” They said the same thing all through July 1914.... In those days I believed the experts. Today I have my tongue in my cheek. This does not mean I am become cynical; but as President I have to be ready just like a Fire Department!”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)