New ‘smart bridge’ over River Wear to encourage walking and cycling in Sunderland

If you all quit feeding him maybe he'll fuck off back to the bridge that he crawled from under

Jimwill wrote:

If you all quit feeding him maybe he'll fuck off back to the bridge that he crawled from under

Oh I agree entirely old boy, I haven't spoken to them for months.
They're still here though.....

marmotte27 wrote:

Not sure we need 'augmented reality' just now. How about politics started to take into account actual reality* first?

*like a transport system that is dangerous and not fit for purpose, climate catastrophe and such like

Ultimately I put this down to human nature e.g. attraction to new / shiny / "big" things, wanting distraction, ignoring the boring / difficult stuff.  Wants, not needs.

It often seems to be the case that it's impossible to find lots of small sums of money for lots of standard, dutiful bits of infra but you can do one or two hugely expensive one-off projects. (So also Big Bung theory - to "generate" money or move it you need a large concentration of it so that those involved can take a bigger cut). This goes along with a lack of focus on the "ongoing" side e.g. having a plan and money for continued use.  So maintenance and maybe even what happens when something comes to end-of-life.

We don't just want bridges - we want cool bridges, novel bridges, bridges with new features, award-winning record-breaking world's-most-expensive better-than-the-rest bridges etc. See "exceptional infrastructure" (also here).

So unless you can generate excitement in others - especially those with influence / money, who tend to be excited by... money - usually it won't happen.

What we need is lots of well-designed but simple and standard infra.  Well designed because making things simple is really hard to get right.  Standard because people make better decisions when they understand the environment.  It's easier to learn something if you encounter it repeatedly.

Example of "expensive but dumb":

Copenhagen - expensive, "cool" bridge - with a really silly - nay dangerous - section on it.

Sounds like a bargain. An earlier Arup bridge needed a year and an extra £5m to make it less exciting to cross.

Yes - rather than encouraging walking and cycling, it sounds more like it'll encourage stopping and hanging around and getting in the way of people trying to cycle and walk. Which is fine, if what you're going for is some kind of installation / tourist attraction, but not so much if you're viewing it as part of your transport strategy.

Instead of all that, they could just paint it rainbow stripes.

It's interesting what bridges cost.
At first £31m doesn't seem excessive - Glasgow City Council are about to spend a similar sum on a pedestrian/cycling bridge across the Clyde at Govan.
A much smaller bridge across the canal at SotckingFiled Junction is costing £14m.

However, the Stockingfield design was chosen because the previously plannned "Big Man Bridge" was deemed too expensive at an estimated cost of £4.5m. We seem to be spending an extra £10m on a cheaper bridge!?
The Clyde Arc (or Squinty Bridge as everyone calls it) carries 4 lanes of traffic and only cost £20m (amdittedly it broke within a couple of weeks of opening).
The Tradeston Bridge (or Squiggly Bridge as it's known), which is pedestrians and cycles only, cost less than £7m - the previous design by Richard Rodgers was going to cost £60m. That's a pretty significant saving!

For augmented reality, read "targeted advertising". Gotta pay for that funky new bridge somehow.

eburtthebike wrote:

They seem to have mistaken the function of a bridge, and won't those "experiences" be somewhat distracting?  A bridge goes over some obstacle, enabling movement from one place to another, and while it might be fun to have interactive experiences on the way, maybe they might be better away from a transport corridor.

Maybe they took their inspiration from Johnson's proposed Garden Bridge...