bridge 3

It took more time to design the plan than to actually construct the bridge.

The Sanyuan Bridge in Beijing links 48 key routes and three major highways: the Airport Expressway, the China National Highway 101 and the 3rd Ring Road. Over 200,000 vehicles cross the bridge daily, so there were some major safety issues when it was discovered that the bridge was severely damaged due to the daily wear and tear from the hundreds of thousands of cars.

Engineers and city planners racked their brains in order to figure out the best and least intrusive way to overhaul the bridge in the fastest amount of time. It took 11 different iterations of the plans and countless hours of painstaking preparation, but the deconstruction of the old bridge and construction of a new one took only 43 hours to complete.

Major cities around the world, take note: this is how we expect you to complete all major road work from now on:

What an awesome feat of human ingenuity and engineering. The video ends just as cars start streaming across the new bridge, sadly, so we don’t even get a chance to appreciate the completed bridge like all the drivers do.

train 1

bridge 4

This project reminds us of a build undertaken by Japan’s Tokyu Railways that converted an above ground rail line into a subway overnight, proving that China isn’t the only speedy construction country in the world. Perhaps Chinese engineers in Beijing saw the Japanese accomplishment back in 2014 and thought, “Anything you can do, we can do better.” Your move, Japan.

Source: that’s
Screenshots: YouTube/CCTV America