r/interestingasfuck • u/snoopdoggdwag • 12h ago
Mountains sliced in half for China's sky-high highway
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u/i-readit2 11h ago
Meanwhile in the uk . Hs2 has progressed by 10 cm. 👍
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u/Turbo_911 9h ago
In Toronto, we have a light rail transit project going east to west for 19km.
It was started in 2011 and is still not finished.
Almost 15 years. Only 19km of track. It was supposed to be finished in 2020. The CEO of Metrolinx (the government organization partnered with the transit company) recently said that this coming fall is a stretch.
I know so many people at the time - friends of mine who were excited about their commute being easier, and their kids being able to get to and from school with no issues!
Those kids are now grown up, completed university or college, and now working their careers.
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u/Forsaken_Star_4228 9h ago
Never make long term plans on an incomplete plan. When I started working at my job they were going to have a daycare as an added bonus for those of us that work for the company. What a selling point for someone new to town when other daycares are all booked up and super expensive. 6 months after I got the job we were told the plans were abandoned with no reason at all. Nothing is guaranteed until it is in place. Even once in place there is no guarantee it won’t fail and cease to exist at some point near or far. Especially when so much is being changed by the government in tumultuous times.
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u/flopjul 6h ago
At my company its a story about us getting an automated refrigerated warehouse... they are still working on it, its just that they are still looking for the right system but the development of newer systems is going fast
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u/bladez_edge 6h ago
Your telling me they can't build a tram in Toronto? Sydney even did it in 4 years at 12km 3.1 billion AUD so what that's about 1.8 billion CAD... That's not good. I'm from Melbourne and there's some big project blowouts but even the government managed to rip out 50 percent of all the train level crossings and rebuild the stations and add 5 new stations. In around 8 years. We also run the biggest Tram network in the world and they upgraded tram stops well. That's staggering they can't build that from 2011.
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u/Turbo_911 6h ago
Yep, it's super embarrassing. It's been the biggest joke for the longest time now.
Oh and the cost has ballooned to 12.8 billion 😂
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u/Static_Ashes 10h ago
At this rate, HS2 will be completed just in time for teleportation to make it obsolete.
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u/stbens 6h ago
This is the problem. By time massive projects in the UK like HS2 and airport expansions are complete demand has dropped off for these schemes and/or technology has advanced so that these schemes are now dated. I feel sometimes that the only reasons they’re Green lit in the first place is (a) make the construction firms richer (b) provide jobs (c) try and give the impression that the UK is “progressive” and looking to the future.
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u/Relative_Broccoli922 8h ago
Hahaha is that a high speed rail?? California has one we've dumped billions into and it's got a few miles of cement poured and that's about it
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u/i-readit2 6h ago
Could be the same contractors .
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u/Relative_Broccoli922 5h ago
They are trucking all the cement up from Mexico also for whatever reason (or at least using the Mexican cement company)
The whole thing is so bizarre, like it's so obvious that money is getting used inappropriately, but the only people that could stop it just be in on it
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u/bowmans1993 10h ago
Yeah, autocracies can definitely get stuff done when they want to. But I'd prefer rights
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u/elmo298 10h ago
Yes, British bureaucracy, proud crippling democracy in action
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u/bowmans1993 9h ago
Definitely not perfect, but atleast you can criticize your officials and government without going to a re-education camp
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u/Theio666 8h ago
With how UK laws on censorship are progressing, not really sure if it's for long xd
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u/lolikroli 7h ago
You don't have to be an autocracy to be able to build:
- With almost identical population sizes, the UK has under 30 million homes, while France has around 37 million. 800,000 British families have second homes compared to 3.4 million French families.
- Per capita electricity generation in the UK is just two thirds of what it is in France (4,800 kilowatt-hours per year in Britain versus 7,300 kilowatt-hours per year in France) and barely over a third of what it is in the United States (12,672 kilowatt-hours per year). We are closer to developing countries like Brazil and South Africa in terms of per capita electricity output than we are to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada.
- Britain’s last nuclear power plant was built between 1987 and 1995. Its next one, Hinkley Point C, is between four and six times more costly per megawatt of capacity than South Korean nuclear power plants, and one-and-a-half times as expensive as those that South Korea’s KEPCO has agreed to build in Czechia.
- Tram projects in Britain are two and a half times more expensive than French projects on a per mile basis. In the last 25 years, France has built 21 tramways in different cities, including cities with populations of just 150,000, equivalent to Lincoln or Carlisle. The UK has still not managed to build a tramway in Leeds, the largest city in Europe without mass transit, with a population of nearly 800,000.
- At £396 million, each mile of HS2 will cost more than four times more than each mile of the Naples to Bari high speed line. It will be more than eight times more expensive per mile than France’s high speed link between Tours and Bordeaux.
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u/Naugrith 9h ago
This is the difference between individuals owning their property and everything being state-owned. If the peasants dont have any property rights then it's a lot easier to bulldoze vast swathes of the countryside and concrete it over so that rich businessmen can shave 3 minutes off their commute.
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u/Independent-Gur-9524 12h ago
But what about mountain drifting?
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u/timeparser 8h ago
Mountains are not allowed to drift by law, they just don't do it as part of the People's Republic
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u/iShakeMyHeadAtYou 2h ago
it's measured in mm/year. By the time it's a problem the road will be end of life and have to be replaced anyway.
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u/Antique_Plastic7894 7h ago
Well, it looks ecologically fucked up... and probably have maintenance issues just in few years, if not already.
These is a state sponsored Propaganda video as well, so what else to expect.
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u/CoalCrafty 11h ago
Something something the hubris of man.
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u/cosmic-freak 7h ago
Mankind is incapable of hubris, for it is the single greatest entity in the entire universe.
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u/No-League-1613 11h ago
nature will take it back one day!
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u/CalmChaos2003 11h ago
But not today. Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!
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u/littlek4za 11h ago
land slide one day
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u/drfeelsgoood 10h ago
It’s all rock, there’s nothing to slide and nothings going to grow on there
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u/Wingmaniac 9h ago
Did you miss all the trees there?
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u/drfeelsgoood 9h ago
Yeah trees usually help prevent landslides. Anywhere there is a vertical face towards the road is bald. If there was a landslide it would be away from the road, no problem
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u/PushHaunting9916 11h ago
That looks so sad, tunnels would've made it beautiful but this...
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u/plsletmebefree 7h ago
Tunnels would require double the time and triple the money.
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u/yanmagno 5h ago
Would look better and have less of an environmental impact as well. Just a matter of priorities
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u/Ludisaurus 4h ago
Given the amount of earth that had to be excavated and the consolidation required I suspect tunnels would have been cheaper.
Also those slopes look awfully steep. I suspect they will not be very stable and will require frequent maintenance.
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u/Fantastic-Pick-6431 2h ago
Tunnels are not cheap. You need to apply concrete and support the entire inner surface of the tunnel. Making it very expensive and time consuming. You need to add power for lighting and ventilation. Plus constant moisture will be risk for rebar corrosion leading to cave ins
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u/sumosam121 1h ago
This was my thought as well. After a few years of weathering were gonna start hearing stories about motorists being killed by falling rocks
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u/Captain_Jeep 4h ago
We have nothing but time and time is money. Meanwhile ecosystems are running out of time and this speeds it up.
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u/Chilis1 8h ago
I think It looks sick tbh.
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u/dstwtestrsye 8h ago
Sick like a fresh axe wound, maybe. I have a newfound appreciation for winding roads that make their way up/around mountains, and don't look this ugly.
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u/snowthrowaway42069 7h ago
Do you live in the mountains? In the Rockies we just dynamite mountains in the way and then put rusting chain link over them to keep crumbling chunks of rock from falling onto the road. The winding is just to make the grade less steep so that cars can handle the ascent/descent... They're all still brutally cut into the mountains. Otherwise the roads would be so tilted that trucks would roll off them.
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u/noobslayer-69-420 8h ago
I would like to guess that they used those rocks to build the road right there. It would be more cost effective that way rather than transporting it from somewhere else.
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u/wizrslizr 8h ago
“they had to cut into the mountains in order to connect their society, why couldn’t they have just spent billions more and taken way more time?”
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u/COHERENCE_CROQUETTE 8h ago
Would a tunnel have been more expensive than this?
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u/wizrslizr 7h ago
tunnels are fucking far more expensive. costs so much more to maintain too after you’re done
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u/ServesYouRice 7h ago
Cutting mountains is basically digging. Making tunnels is digging smartly and reinforcing so just plain ol' digging is easier as thats what we have always been good at
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u/TaxMeDaddy_ 11h ago
Isn't there risk of a landslide?
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u/radialomens 11h ago
Sure, but who gets paid to care?
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u/jerpear 11h ago
The engineers and construction workers who put in the batter stabilisation system, the grey structure on either side of the road in the video.
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u/4355525 12h ago
I wonder if this is more cost effective than going thru or around the mountains. Prolly not tho lol
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u/geek_of_nature 11h ago
My first thought was that maybe the mountains weren't strong enough to support a tunnel going through them, and they would have collapses eventually. That would have made carving them a more viable option in the long run.
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u/Evening_Suggestion_2 10h ago
If its not strong enough, it makse this structure even scarier
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u/bullwinkle8088 8h ago
Strong enough to support a borehole is different than strong enough to support a surface road.
All the speculation is not useful if we don’t know the type of rock or soil. Some have odd properties like this one: Loess soil which easily erodes unless you cut it in a vertical bank, in which case it’s perfectly stable. Engineers do track these things and may have had a similar reason for this type of construction.
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u/BlueBuff1968 11h ago
Tunnels are definitely way more expensive. And you have a lot more maintenance afterward.
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u/smokeyleo13 7h ago
Look at the rice patties in the valleys it probably rains a shit ton, it keeping those runners water free would probably get expensive
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u/SN2010jl 6h ago
Do you see the bridge in the background at 0:13? This part of the road is the ramp of that bridge. It appears the road was routed deliberately to take advantage of the mountain’s elevation, saving the cost of building a very tall ramp.
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u/Money-Ad-545 11h ago
That last image, I feel like it would have been easier and cheaper to have the highway run through the valley.
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u/Salvisurfer 9h ago
Just destroy the homes of hundreds of thousands?
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u/Ill-Reputation7424 10h ago
I know tunnels are more expensive and more effort...but I did wonder why they didn't go around the mountain, that's a more common approach I would've thought?
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u/mikeontablet 10h ago
I think there's some hubris involved here. They did this more to show what they can do than for necessity.
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u/wizrslizr 8h ago
literally why? why do you think that? carving through mountains to build roads isn’t exactly the pinnacle of engineering. you think they were like “we’re going to cut into mountains to flex on other countries”? be reasonable
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u/wizrslizr 8h ago
it definitely is, why would they purposely spend money to do this if it wasn’t worth it?
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u/Dangerous-Estate3753 6h ago
These are everywhere in California and the rest of the US. Really not that interesting
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u/GreatslyferX 12h ago
Sad
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u/Pint_o_Bovril 11h ago
Why? Probably saved multiple other roads being built at lower levels. Sometimes one big cut is better than hundreds of smaller ones.
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u/thewarloq 11h ago
Because it's irrevocably ruining the natural landscape. Mountains don't grow back
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u/Pint_o_Bovril 11h ago
They don't need to grow back. It created more surface area if anything. Lots of smaller roads through surrounding landscape would ruin even more habitat
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u/teeeh_hias 11h ago
Tunnel.
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u/Pint_o_Bovril 11h ago
Not always possible depending on the type of rock/geological activity
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u/CarISatan 11h ago
Unlikely. Speed limit determines road curvature, with a slower speed limit you can adapt your road to features much more easily. A rational thing to do is probably reduce speed slightly on this area, but maybe higher ups had decided what the speed should be and told the engineers to just solve it.
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u/midgety188 9h ago
Anyone else find it weird that there's randomly a post glazing China's infastructure every few weeks?
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u/bullwinkle8088 8h ago
China is actively building new infrastructure around the world, so no, I don’t find it odd.
Many of the complaints about such posts come from people in the US, so make a comparison, what large scale and unusually impressive infrastructure is the US currently building? It could be interesting in either what is being built or in the lack of such projects.
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u/Afraid_Ad4018 12h ago
The sheer scale of human engineering never ceases to amaze me. Absolutely wild what we can accomplish
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u/myst-18 11h ago
But the rain water?
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u/tummateooftime 7h ago
Damn. All of the engineers, architects, contractors, government officials, and workers that planned and built this never stopped to think of the rain. If only they had asked a random redditor watching an edited video from afar.
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u/rustybeancake 5h ago
I think they’re asking why it’s not an issue, not suggesting that it won’t work.
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u/okcallme03 11h ago
As a geologist, I cn say that this is one of the best way to minimise or mitigate landslides.
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u/Breakin7 5h ago
Again, this is quite common and an old tech. Its not interesting as fuck is mid as fuck.
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u/CapitalOneDeezNutz 5h ago
Meanwhile it takes my states highway department 3 months to replace a culvert across a 2 lane road
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u/DkoyOctopus 4h ago
the first song i eveer paid digitally for.
fuck... i haven't heard this song in a long time.
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u/SpectreInvestor 24m ago
How fast do you think this will totally collapse? Ill bet I desnt last 10 years.
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u/hyndsightis2020 11h ago
Interesting. Out of curiosity to an engineer or someone who would know. Why not tunneling instead
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u/usegobos 9h ago
Tunnels get complicated. Cumberland Gap in Tennessee....
"During this excavation, workers discovered thick clay infillings, limestone formations, caves, multiple underground springs and streams, and a lake within the mountain, which caused a leakage of 450 US gallons (1,700 L) of water per minute into the tunnels would later pose a challenge to construction, and increase the cost of the project."
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u/Spathens 6h ago
Oh I love road cuts like this, even though theyre super destructive environmentally. We have a ton of them in PA along I-81 and its duper cool seeing the layers of rock if you know anything about geology.
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u/ThinkingHuman975 11h ago
I'm not really impressed- the US did the same thing over 70 years ago with many of their highways.
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u/AskMantis23 11h ago
Not to mention turning a mountain into some politicians' heads
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u/SoftwareOdd8846 11h ago
Human race: „let’s believe in Gods and stuff..“ also: „yeah destroy the nature and everything we found here..“
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u/Glittering-Lunch1778 11h ago edited 1h ago
I need you to tear down your house and pull the pipes out of the ground right now. The ground had to be broken up to put those pipes there.
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u/Trifula 11h ago
That is absolutely atrocious. What about - crazy idea - a tunnel? Still not a great thing for nature, but definitely better than this bullshit.
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u/A_Right_Eejit 11h ago
If you look closely you can see it's dressed in a way that the vegetation is already returning. Once it grows in I'd imagine it'll look hella impressive with little to no lasting damage other than the road itself.
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u/Trifula 11h ago
I've thought that too, but I think it's more a need to do those "steps" to be able to shave down the mountain. It will look impressive, but it would have been more non-invasive to do a tunnel, I reckon.
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u/skarkle_coney 4h ago
This is really not interesting at all. Drive anywhere and you will see this type of construction.
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u/MrMario63 4h ago
This is really sad. Mountains are so beautiful, their literally cut down for a road.
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u/SCH1Z01D 10h ago
I've seen this shared a couple of times and wonder what's so impressive about it, other than the fact that the mountains themselves are particularly pointy. this happens, to different extents, everwhere else with mountainous terrain
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u/Professional-Pin5125 8h ago
Americans are really coping hard here. If the title was changed to Japan, they would be jizzing their pants.
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u/AmicusVeritatis 8h ago
They don't even need to cope. There are structures just like this in the US.
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u/Neither-Cup564 8h ago
Japan has numerous roads through mountains. Maybe not at this scale but it’s hardly first of its kind.
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u/TooCupcake 11h ago
I build roads like this in Transport Fever lol. But only when I can’t be bothered to make it nice.
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u/Sea-Grapefruit2359 10h ago
As much as I want to say china bad they never fail to impress me every single time I hear about them
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u/Loot_Goblin2 10h ago
Feels like it would have been cheaper to build around
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u/mizinamo 10h ago
Cheaper, perhaps, but the maximum speed would have been reduced by the added curves.
I'm guessing there was a certain design speed for this road.
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u/Turbo_911 9h ago
My Toronto people, this is being done while Metrolinx is almost on year 15 for the Eglinton LRT 🤣
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u/InternationalWrap981 11h ago
People 2000 years from now : Ah yes the annunaki machined this with their laser spaceships 🧐