Very impressive. The economic angle is a bit confusing. Wonder why China thought this was a worthy investment. Guizhou is a poor part of China, without much international tourism or trade.
Wikipedia indicates it is meant to increase tourism, but even China's most attractive regions (Beijing, Shanghai, Great Wall, Chengdu, Chongqing) are under-visited. I can't imagine that Guizhou will be on foreign tourist's agenda for at least a couple of decades. I think this is an attempt by the local govt. to get more internal tourism. It might work out. We'll see.
> reduces travel time between the two sides of the canyon from two hours to two minutes.
Think of it this way.
Every 2 hours round trip to 2 minutes saves imported fossil. For trucking/freight that's like ~$80 of diesel both ways.
PRC construction workers, though less abundant is cheaper than it ever will be. So best time to build infra is always now, especially one that reduces long tail imports.
Every piece of infra that cuts time (apart from cutting X time) is basically frontloading (domestic) steel and concrete to reduce future oil imports (and emissions). Rough napkin math, 2B rmb construction cossts = ~3m barrels of oil, 2b kms of travel. Shaving off 2hrs (guestimate ~150km) and it pays itself off in imported fuel metric between ~10m trips (for freight , more for passenger). Guizhou has 40m people, if a fraction goes to see the bridge, do some tourist shit (induced demand) it would go a long way to basically subsidize a bridge that cut logistics times and wear on tear for the region.
Yes, but on the other side of the coin is the pending maintenance for all of these projects. You don't just build a road, rail or bridge anad then be done with it. They all require upkeep. If the project itself was a jobs program masquerading as a infra, they'll just let all these fabulous projects rot as it won't make sense to keep them up.
TBH potential future problem, scales to whether/how much construction industry get captured to point where maintenance costs is onerous. Developed west forgets, upkeep doesn't have to be expensive to defer which snowballs costs. The broader consideration for PRC is they are per capita, infrastructure POOR, i.e. less unit of infra in variety of categories per capita - there simply isn't that much excess infra relative to population.
Some of the bad investments won't pay back, will get abandoned with demographic change (baked in lower utilization when population drops), but IMO infra serves 10s millions, cuts millions of barrels of oil imports has good chance of paying for itself. Like 2hour -> 2minute infra for 2B rmb = 0.1% of Guizhou GDP. Seems like a no brainer.
As an average, definitely. Whether that is relevant to the area in question I don't know. Materials and fuel costs are rising globally too, China's population-size based buying power shields them from that a little more than some places, far from completely.
Undereducated workforce willing to do hard construction decreasing -> wagse rising. There's still big/experienced construction work force, build while it's cheap, build bigger and more than you have to etc.
Could not part of its poverty problem be caused by the restrictive travel time and rough terrain that this bridge avoids and could help them become prosperous? If you only build prosperous things for prosperous areas, poorer areas will never get better and could even get worse in comparison as competing becomes even harder.
Its like if you put a dimensional portal across a Great Lake, even if neither side of the portal is currently not very prosperous, the fact that hours of ferry turned into minutes of travel would be a huge boon to both sides and gather attention, investments, and economic benefits that could turn both sides into prosperous cities.
Bridges are expensive to build and to maintain. Maybe people could be helped better other ways; economics is about making choices with limited resources.
> We don't need an economic angle [...] We aren't just cogwheels in an economic system
This kind of thinking is exactly how people go bankrupt. "But I deserve those shoes" "I need a Starbucks to get the day started" "This McMansion would make me happy" "I'd rather commute in a BMW than a Toyota"
I believe that the saving four hours (two hours each way) to travel from or to the city, multiplied by the amount of current and potential vehicles, is a clear opportunity benefit.
Not to mention the fuel saved and pollution prevented. And increased economic development for the city.
Having spent a lot of time in Japan, construction there was a way to provide money to poor regions. You build some big project and pay people good wages and encourage growth of local industry. Not saying it's good or bad but the economics may be secondary to these goals
having crossed one of these superlative Guizhou bridges i can attest to their ability to inspire a sense of wonder like other large-scale human accomplishments.
Not the least of which is the fact that infrastructure needs to be maintained. The US has a lot of infrastructure and we are in a phase now where we are having to make hard decisions about what to keep. In my neck of the woods, which is mountainous, many bridges have closed and it looks like they may not come back. Presumably China understands the long-term costs of infrastructure so I wonder what their analysis is. It would be kind of crazy to build something like this on spec…
Prior generations made these same decisions too. I’ve discovered that the area I live in used to have a fair number of electric trams. They all went away with the advent of the automobile.
The Wikipedia page currently also states that it reduces the gorge crossing time from 70 minutes to one minute. So it definitely serves a purpose - whether we each judge that to be worth it is another question.
> Wonder why China thought this was a worthy investment. Guizhou is a poor part of China, without much international tourism or trade.
Could be part of a bit of internal “not leaving anyone behind” propaganda, rather than a concern for national or international trade.
Less cynically, it could be a genuine attempt to help pull the area up economically. Lack of good transport infrastructure can be a major factor among those that hold areas back in that regard.
Apart from what others already mentioned (build and improvements will follow): construction is the main tool the CCP uses in padding economic numbers. And that sectors has not been doing well for a while now, with all the unused ghost metropoles sitting idle. These projects are there not just to improve the local region, but also to keep the construction sector afloat.
.....Are you why we don't have infrastructure in the US?
If you want to uplift a region, you invest into it.
A bridge that cuts travel time by 2 hours increases domestic trade, it can even increase domestic and international tourism long term.
Wikipedia indicates it is meant to increase tourism, but even China's most attractive regions (Beijing, Shanghai, Great Wall, Chengdu, Chongqing) are under-visited. I can't imagine that Guizhou will be on foreign tourist's agenda for at least a couple of decades. I think this is an attempt by the local govt. to get more internal tourism. It might work out. We'll see.