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A bridge to nowhere is a bridge where one or both ends are broken, incomplete, or unconnected to any roads. If it is an overpass or an interchange, the term overpass to nowhere or interchange to nowhere may be used respectively. [2] [3]
There are five main origins for these bridges:
Further, the term "bridge to nowhere" may be used by political opponents to describe a bridge (or proposed bridge) that serves low-population areas at high cost, a symbol of pork barrel spending. [4]
It may also be used to describe a useless construction in overall.
It can simply mean as well "dead end" or "useless" in that way without referring to a construction.
The colloquial name for a bridge to nowhere in Germany is "Soda-Brücke" (a pun on "so da" = "just there"). Many of the bridges were built in the 1970s as part of the Autobahn network, but the oil crisis and rising environmental consciousness slowed many highway extensions.
A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide valley, road, river, or other low-lying terrain features and obstacles. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via meaning "road", and ducere meaning "to lead". It is a 19th-century derivation from an analogy with ancient Roman aqueducts. Like the Roman aqueducts, many early viaducts comprised a series of arches of roughly equal length.
An overpass, called an overbridge or flyover in the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth countries, is a bridge, road, railway or similar structure that crosses over another road or railway. An overpass and underpass together form a grade separation. Stack interchanges are made up of several overpasses.
King's Highway 402, commonly referred to as Highway 402 and historically as the Blue Water Bridge Approach, is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario that connects the Blue Water Bridge international crossing near Sarnia to Highway 401 in London. It is one of multiple trade links between Ontario and the Midwestern United States. It is four lanes for much of its length, though the approach to the Blue Water Bridge is six lanes.
Interstate 678 (I-678) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway that extends for 14 miles (23 km) through two boroughs of New York City. The route begins at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jamaica Bay and travels north through Queens and across the East River to the Bruckner Interchange in the Bronx, where I-678 ends and the Hutchinson River Parkway begins.
The MacArthur Maze is a large freeway interchange near the east end of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in Oakland, California. It splits Bay Bridge traffic into three freeways—the Eastshore (I-80/I-580), MacArthur (I-580) and Nimitz (I-880).
Clara Barton Parkway is an automobile parkway in the U.S. state of Maryland and the District of Columbia. The highway runs 6.8 miles (10.9 km) from MacArthur Boulevard in Carderock, Maryland, east to Canal Road at the Chain Bridge in Washington. Clara Barton Parkway is a two- to four-lane parkway that parallels the Potomac River and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) in southwestern Montgomery County, Maryland, and the far western corner of Washington. The parkway provides access to the communities of Cabin John and Glen Echo and several units of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. The Maryland portion of the George Washington Memorial Parkway was constructed from Carderock past Interstate 495 (I-495) to Glen Echo in the early to mid-1960s. The parkway was proposed to continue west to Great Falls and east to Georgetown. However, these proposals never came to fruition and the parkway was extended only to the Chain Bridge in the early 1970s. The Maryland portion of the George Washington Memorial Parkway was renamed in 1989 for Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, and whose original headquarters is located in Glen Echo.
The Claiborne Pell Bridge, commonly known as the Newport Bridge, is a suspension bridge operated by the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority that spans the East Passage of the Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. The bridge, part of RI 138, connects the city of Newport on Aquidneck Island and the Town of Jamestown on Conanicut Island, and is named for longtime Rhode Island U.S. senator Claiborne Pell who lived in Newport. The Pell Bridge is in turn connected to the mainland by the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge.
Route 1 is a major artery in Hong Kong that runs in a generally north-south direction, connecting Aberdeen with Sha Tin.
The Old Eastern Avenue Bridge consists of two bridges spanning the Don River in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The north bridge or Gas Line Bridge is a concrete arch bridge built for Consumer's Gas Company and is used by Enbridge Gas to carry a major gas main. The southern Howe truss bridge, similar to Queen Street Viaduct and Sir Isaac Brock Bridge, previously carried traffic on Eastern Avenue but is currently unused.
Leach Highway is a 23-kilometre (14 mi) east-west arterial highway in the southern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, primarily linking Kewdale and Perth Airport with the city of Fremantle.
The Third Ring Road, or The Third Ring, is a beltway around central Moscow, Russia, located between the Garden Ring in the city centre and the Moscow Ring Road (MKAD).
U.S. Highway 90 Business is a business route of U.S. Highway 90 located in and near New Orleans, Louisiana. It runs 14.25 miles (22.93 km) in a general east–west direction from US 90 in Avondale to a junction with Interstate 10 (I-10) and US 90 in the New Orleans Central Business District.
Memorial Parkway, also known as the Parkway, is a major thoroughfare in Huntsville, Alabama that carries over 100,000 vehicles on average a day. It, in whole or in part, follows U.S. Route 231, U.S. Route 431, U.S. Route 72, and State Route 53 through the Huntsville city limits. It is a limited access road through most of Huntsville city proper, providing exits to the frontage road which allows access to road intersections, as well as businesses and residences along the route. Both the limited access and frontage roads are referred to as Memorial Parkway. Originally constructed to bypass downtown Huntsville and officially opened on December 1, 1955, the highway is the major commercial thoroughfare through Huntsville, a status it has held since the mid-1960s.
Interstate 64 (I-64) is an Interstate Highway in the US state of West Virginia. It travels east–west through the state for 189 miles (304 km) passing by the major towns and cities of Huntington, Charleston, Beckley, and Lewisburg.
An unused highway is a highway or highway ramp that was partially or fully constructed, but went unused or was later closed. An unused roadway or ramp may often be referred to as an abandoned road, ghost road, highway to nowhere, stub ramp, ghost ramp, ski jump, stub street, stub-out, or simply stub.
The North–South Motorway is a partially complete motorway traversing the inner western suburbs of Adelaide, from Waterloo Corner in the north to Bedford Park in the south. Progressively constructed in stages since 2010, once complete it will replace the adjacent South Road as Adelaide's main north–south roadway. It will form the central section of the North–South Corridor, being flanked north and south by the Northern Expressway and Southern Expressway, respectively. It is designated part of route M2.
Interstate 74 (I-74) is the central freeway through the Iowa Quad Cities. It roughly divides Davenport to the west and Bettendorf to the east. The Interstate Highway begins at an interchange with I-80 at the northeastern edge of Davenport and continues into Illinois at the Mississippi River by crossing the I-74 Bridge. The freeway was built in stages during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The New Yalu River Bridge, or Korea-China Amnok River Bridge, is a road bridge across the Amnok River between Dandong, Liaoning Province, China, and Sinuiju, North Korea. The cable-stayed bridge, which is 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) long including the supporting roads, is intended as a replacement for the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge. Construction began in October 2011 and is mostly complete and connected with Xingdan Road, but the project stalled between 2014 and 2019, with work unfinished on the North Korean side. By 2021, construction on the North Korean side has been mostly completed, with the bridge being expected to open soon.
The Ringway 3 of Greater Hanoi area, signed as CT.37 is a major freeway and urban thoroughfare surrounding the inner part of Hanoi. As the first ringway built in Greater Hanoi area, Ringway 3 connects most of the newly developed area outside the urban core of Hanoi. In addition to that, Ringway 3 is the terminus of most expressway connecting Greater Hanoi to other regions of Vietnam. Due to its importance, Ringway 3 is one of the busiest and most congested highway in Vietnam, carrying from 8 to 10 times its maximum capacity. To deal with congestion, the Government of Vietnam has proposed building additional ringway to help alleviate traffic on Ringway 3.
The world's longest sea bridge, built in Qingdao, [the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge ] has few users, making it the Chinese version of the "Bridge to Nowhere".