[HN Gopher] The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge
___________________________________________________________________
The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge
Author : graypegg
Score : 525 points
Date : 2023-09-02 07:12 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tylervigen.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tylervigen.com)
| sscarduzio wrote:
| > not really the kind of place you would need to walk to
|
| As an European, the amount of cringe on reading this sentence
| went through the roof.
| OfSanguineFire wrote:
| Fellow European here, and also an OpenStreetMap editor who maps
| a lot of warehouses like what the article describes is
| presently at one end of the bridge and "not really the kind of
| place you would need to walk to". Even in a European context, I
| wouldn't consider consider that Grainiger facility any
| significant destination for people on foot.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't break the site guidelines, which include:
|
| " _Don 't be snarky._"
|
| " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents._ "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| keiferski wrote:
| Plenty of places in Europe are not in places that you "would
| need to walk to."
| omnibrain wrote:
| Worst experience was at Stansted airport. We had a very early
| flight home so we decided we can drop off our car at the
| airport in the evening and stay at the Holiday Inn Express
| (worst hotel experience ever, but that's another story) ~500m
| away from the car rentals. There is no footpath at all. You
| would have to frogger over the airport access road after
| walking on the curb. So we had to take the bus from the
| rental yard back to the terminal and pay 5 pound each for the
| transfer bus to the hotel.
| dingus9001 wrote:
| And yet, walk to them you still can
| keiferski wrote:
| You can walk to the same sorts of places in American cities
| too...
| tylervigen wrote:
| I agree that walkability and the culture around cars and
| walking is abysmal in the United States.
|
| However, I should clarify that this particular location is
| primarily a warehouse for industrial equipment for use at the
| airport. Most of its business is from trucks that use the dock.
| It would be great if the area was more walkable, but if we made
| it more walkable we would not prioritize this specific
| business.
|
| (Context: I am the author of the article.)
| hum3hum3 wrote:
| Amazing dedication and I did read to the end.
| einpoklum wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post flamewar comments. We're trying for something
| else here, and we've had to ask you this more than once before.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| This man has no self control. He just had to know. He had. to.
| know.
|
| So many respects! You'd make an excellent bug hunter, mister.
| mrsofty wrote:
| this was a real pleasure to read. I had just made my coffee and
| saw the title. I liked the way that the author followed the
| thought process you would go through AND took the time to find
| the actual evidence to prove or disprove a theory. Well done! I'm
| sending it to my colleagues as, given our Edward Debono training,
| a brain refresh. Thanks so much for posting
| Angostura wrote:
| A great find, OP thank you for posting. I'm in awe of the
| author's dedication. I wish someone close to the bridge would
| post a note with the URL on it.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Or a sticker with a QR code linking to the URL.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I hope a local library, government, or historical society keeps
| a physical printed copy on paper. Or at least an offline
| digital copy somewhere.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| There's a mysterious pedestrian bridge over I-5 in North Seattle,
| with nothing like it for miles. After reading this post I looked
| it up in google maps, and sure enough, it's right next to an
| elementary school.
| https://www.google.com/maps/@47.7639358,-122.3249609,554a,35...
| And two similar ones over I-405
| https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6594203,-122.1842507,174a,35...
| https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6768724,-122.187362,187a,35y...
| colinchartier wrote:
| Reminds me of this video about the origin of the name Tiffany:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9LMr5XTgeyI
|
| "I didn't fly across the Atlantic to... Of course I did"
| tylervigen wrote:
| Ha, then you might enjoy this anecdote: In that Tiffany video,
| there is a chart that appears on screen for a fraction of a
| second at 7:39 (the correlation "People drowning in swimming
| pool <> Films with Nicholas Cage"). That chart is from Spurious
| Correlations, and was made by the author of the bridge article.
|
| Source: Am that author. :)
| whoopdedo wrote:
| > The best search terms were not road names, they were people's
| names.
|
| Demonstrating once again that it's not what you know, it's who
| you know.
| nkrisc wrote:
| There's a bridge near where I live, identified as "Farm Rd". It
| looks like any other bridge over the interstate but I'd never
| heard of that road before. Generally any road around here that
| would warrant a bridge over the interstate is one I'd have heard
| of. One day I looked satellite images of it and on one end it
| immediately ends in a grassy field, and the other side is,
| unsurprisingly, what looks like a working farm.
|
| My guess is when the interstate was built it bisected private
| farmland and the bridge was built so the landowner could still
| access the rest of their property. There's no "going" around any
| other way for many miles.
|
| I always wondered how I could find out for sure and this article
| gave me some ideas on how to even begin searching.
| mindcrime wrote:
| There's a curious one lane bridge[1] over I-40 outside of
| Raleigh that leads to a gravel road that serves about 4 houses,
| and then leads into the back side of Umstead State Park. We
| always joke about it being the "bridge to nowhere" and ponder
| "who had the political connections to make _that_ happen? "
|
| But I imagine it's something like you were saying: probably
| when I-40 was built, the land acquisition process resulted in
| those homes being cut off from everywhere else, _unless_ that
| bridge was built. And probably it was cheaper / easier / more
| politically viable to build the bridge than buy out the
| remaining land-owners.
|
| Or maybe there was more to it. This area is also adjacent to
| RDU airport: a lot of the land you can see near "Old Reedy
| Creek Road" on the map, north of I-40, belongs to the airport,
| even though it is undeveloped (aside from bandit MTB trails). I
| _suppose_ the argument for the bridge might have involved
| providing better access to the airport, then or in the future,
| for emergency crews or something of that nature. The additional
| access to Umstead Park I wouldn 't expect to be a big factor,
| because the next exit down on I-40 is already one of the two
| major entrances to the park.
|
| Anyway it's always interesting to look at stuff like this and
| wonder how/why certain decisions were made.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.google.com/maps/@35.8400772,-78.7819125,75m/data...
| mannyv wrote:
| One interesting takeaway was his note about influence at the end.
| Nuns and their ilk could have a tremendous impact back in the
| day...informally speaking. And there's no documentation.
|
| Influence != authority. But with authority alone you can't
| necessarily answer "why here instead of there?"
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Great read. I love the obsession and I will now look out for
| things in the urban landscape that seem a bit unusual!
| cutups wrote:
| I wonder how many "Bloomfield Bridges" there are in the world. I
| saw this headline and wondered if it was about the Bloomfield
| Bridge in Pittsburgh, PA. I clicked on the article and saw the
| pedestrian bridge, which looks extremely similar to a pedestrian
| bridge that ends right by the Bloomfield Bridge in Pittsburgh,
| but clearly just happenstance
| owgevub wrote:
| [flagged]
| smitty1e wrote:
| Thanks. This article points out how fragile information is; how
| important a minor obsession can be; and what a great site HN is
| for the occasional random treasure.
| [deleted]
| tylervigen wrote:
| If anyone will appreciate this, Hacker News will: this page is
| un-monetized, has no ads, no cookies, no Google Trackers, and
| loads no external scripts. You can check! I (the author) don't
| even know how many people are on the page (except that it is a
| lot because it's linked here).
|
| The images do load from a different domain (tylervigentest.com),
| but that is for a different reason. I was overwhelming my webhost
| with more DNS requests than it could handle.[0] I went to move my
| domain, but it got locked in the process (I don't know why).
| Offloading the images was the only way I could think to reduce
| the strain on the current DNS server.
|
| [0]See, for example, the comments section of the submission here
| a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37318295
| [deleted]
| greatgib wrote:
| This is really a fascinating piece to read, even for a non
| American or not living in this area.
|
| Also I like very much the way that it is written in a straight to
| the fact way despite it being very long. I did read it in one
| time like a book.
|
| I wish that newspaper articles (like NYT and co) still had that
| quality of investigation and writing. Instead of flooding us with
| useless half-invented context facts to fill pages. I would
| subscribe more.
| stuaxo wrote:
| Weird they don't have a proper sidewalk and just end it on grass.
| scarlson wrote:
| The cities would have been responsible for building sidewalks
| to the bridge. If you look around where the bridge is on modern
| maps you'll see that a lot of the residential area on the North
| side of the bridge (Richfield) just doesn't have sidewalks.
| tylervigen wrote:
| It's even weirder than that! Residents of Richfield at the
| time saw the lack of sidewalks as a feature, not a bug. They
| wanted to distinguish themselves from Minneapolis, so they
| protested the building of sidewalks because "how would people
| know we are a suburb if we have sidewalks?" (This is a real
| quote from a real, very politically active resident at the
| time. Seriously.)
|
| Context: I wrote the article linked in the OP.
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| I read the whole article, it's enthralling to me because of how
| heartwarming the impact was from the engineering to the users.
| The part about the foresight to add the little bike gutter just
| makes me tear up. Such a simple piece of steel, and yet it
| enabled so many good memories for those children writing in. I'm
| thankful the author didn't get his answer from his couch either!
| tylervigen wrote:
| Me too! I would have missed out on all the fun if I had learned
| the answer on day one.
| nrawe wrote:
| Very funny article, watching him follow the rabbit hole. Glad he
| got to a resolution. I'm now more informed than I ever thought I
| could be about a bridge
| nedt wrote:
| I would have guessed the bridge was built for future development,
| which then wasn't done. In Vienna there is a bridge that's a bit
| similar that for a long time was just leading to an empty field.
| It goes across Grenzackerstrasse, which could be rathly
| translated to field border street. It took some time for housed
| to be built on the other side. There would have been the
| possibility that there would be just industry on both sides and
| then it would have been mostly useless.
| sohkamyung wrote:
| I'm a bit surprised that no mention was made of Tyler Vigen's
| other 'pet' project: Spurious Correlations, which includes the
| hilarious spurious correlation that the number of people who've
| drowned in swimming pools is positively correlated with the
| number of films Nicholas Cage has appeared in. :-)
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Amused at the disgruntled Grainger folk who don't want the bridge
| now - litter and foot traffic annoy them.
|
| Very human response. But hey Grainger, the bridge was there
| first! You don't like it, put your business somewhere else. The
| bridge is for the kids, always has been, so suck it up.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| To be fair, it doesn't sound like they were trying to complain
| about it or get rid of it. Somebody came to them for their
| opinion and they don't like it. There are plenty of things I'll
| complain about if asked that I generally suck it up and deal
| with.
| achr2 wrote:
| I found that funny from the perspective of it invalidating the
| claim that the bridge was disused. It's like a Yogi Berra
| adage.
| pnw wrote:
| Such a great read. I've done similar historical research and it's
| always so satisfying to get that final document that solves the
| puzzle. It's amazing what you can find online and in archives,
| and how helpful people are along the way.
|
| In retrospect, it's not difficult to guess that the bridge was
| likely built for the school, because the school and church
| property is quite large, and there is a footpath on the side with
| the housing development. But it's always much harder to see
| things like that in context at the time.
| SanderNL wrote:
| Exceedingly interesting and impressive amounts of dedication.
|
| There is also a lesson in there about endless chasing of
| technical details instead of going straight to the source of all
| mysteries: power and the people that hold it.
|
| Many software challenges can be looked at through the same lens.
| Why is this project even a thing and why, o, why is it $25M over
| budget and getting nowhere? (Hint: nothing technical)
| lchengify wrote:
| That was one of my takeaways as well. Nothing beats primary
| sources and aligned incentives.
|
| Also just as a practical matter: Professionals are required to
| track the money and engineering, so there's bound to be a paper
| trail. No one has a good reason to write down the "why" unless
| it's a cool story to retell. Even then, the details behind the
| story wouldn't be included.
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| This is a great example of if at first you don't succeed, try and
| try and try and try again.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37344146
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37318295
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37317859
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37312700
| tylervigen wrote:
| Ha! Author here. I actually posted it here right after I
| published it earlier this week. I thought it was more Hacker
| News material than Reddit material. But no one saw it at the
| time. Guess it didn't get the good numbers from the algorithm.
|
| For the record: none of the other repostings of it were from
| me.
| dang wrote:
| I know it looked like that, but it was weirder--a failure mode
| I ran into last night, and the process of correcting it was a
| rabbit hole that maybe would be interesting to share.
|
| The article was posted 27 (!) times (see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37364657 - in addition to
| any that may have been deleted) but they were killed because
| the domain was banned. Yikes! how could such a great site be
| banned? Well, before this article existed, there was only the
| author's page of Spurious Correlations, which is fun and clever
| but not quite suitable for HN, and it was posted so often (see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37364947) that a mod must
| have banned it back when nothing else was coming in from that
| domain. Alas, when a ban like that fails, it can fail
| catastrophically, because the next thing to come in from that
| domain, after 85 Spurious Correlations, was a once-in-several-
| years-I-would-say classic.
|
| I ran across all those [dead] submissions last night, realized
| this was an awesome article for HN and promptly unbanned the
| domain. That left the problem of what to do with 27 past
| submissions - which should 'win'? Which user should get credit?
| (Eventually we want to build a karma-sharing system to solve
| this, but that's not done yet.)
|
| In such cases--i.e. when a good article has been submitted
| multiple times but not had attention yet--we often go through
| the submission feeds of the accounts involved, looking for any
| other good-but-overlooked submissions that we might invite them
| to repost instead. That usually means looking at 2 or maybe 5
| submission feeds (not 27)! but I spent about an hour last night
| looking through most of them and finding other articles to
| invite. For fun, here are the ones I found:
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37317859 (obviously)
|
| _Recursive Racks [video]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37200556
|
| _Early performance results from the prototype CHERI ARM
| Morello microarchitecture_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37082504
|
| _Show HN: Shaq, a CLI for Shazam_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36894144
|
| _A GPT-4 capability forecasting challenge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36846030
|
| _A plot to steal the secret Coke can-liner formula_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36171374
|
| _Lego 3-axis styrofoam cutter [video]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35931960
|
| _Webb Mirror (2022)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33608752
|
| _Contexto: Guess a word based on its AI-sorted context_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33412895
|
| _The Craft of Experimental Physics (2015)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25876989
|
| A few of those have already been reposted and are currently on
| the front page. Invited reposts get put in the second-chance
| pool (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308), meaning
| they get a random placement somewhat low on HN's front page.
| Most soon fall off, but the ones that spark readers' interest
| can go on to do well. You can see the list of invited reposts
| here: https://news.ycombinator.com/invited.
|
| When deciding who to invite to repost the original thing (in
| this case, the bridge article), we go by a few heuristics.
| Earlier submitters are preferred to later ones. Submitters who
| have never had a story hit the frontpage are preferred to those
| who have; and those who haven't had a 'hit' for a long time
| (years, in some cases) are preferred to those who've have had
| one recently. Submitters who've posted less, or not for a long
| time, are preferred to HN titans (ColinWright, we love you but
| that's why https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37312700,
| despite being early, 'lost'). Accounts for which we have no
| email address necessarily 'lose', though I sometimes try to
| work around that: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&
| prefix=true&que....
|
| Oh, and when one of the previous submitters is clearly the
| article's author, we usually _don 't_ invite them to do the
| repost. That way two people can have some dopamine instead of
| just one.
|
| Sometimes I do this search recursively*: when in someone's past
| submission feed I run into an article so good I wonder who else
| has posted _that_ , and which of _them_ should 'win', so I
| look through all _their_ histories for yet other articles that
| deserve reposting, hopefully without losing my place in the
| previous search. I can 't handle a stack depth of more than 2
| or 3 before my brain explodes and then I usually bail until
| next time. (* Depth-first or breadth-first? I've tried both
| ways to figure out which allows me to hold more state before
| capsizing, but I'm unsure. Both involve opening a lot of tabs,
| but in a different order, and both get unwieldy)
|
| This is a great way to meander through the archives (the
| catacombs?) and find obscure, interesting things. It would be
| worth writing software to support it one of these years. HN is
| in a rare sweet spot where, just out of business interests, it
| makes sense for YC to fund it simply to be interesting (https:/
| /hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...), and
| obscure overlooked submissions are among the most interesting
| things on HN--so the archives should only grow in value and
| this can hopefully keep going for a long time.
|
| I got tired partway through last night--a recursive search with
| 27 inputs was just too much. I can't remember why graypegg
| 'won'--I think I just threw an exception. That left a bunch of
| submitters who didn't get a repost invite, but I've added these
| now:
|
| _Show HN: SkyFi - Command satellites on demand_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34468803
|
| _The Curious Case of Hybrids in Watchmaking_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34584488
|
| _The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 miles in the city_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37119695
|
| _Home Assistant Door Chime via Sonos_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24740283
|
| _The Hunt for the Giant Squid (2004)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37344191
|
| If anyone else wants to dig for worthy ones, I'd love to see
| the links! People frequently email us asking for second chances
| for their own material. That's...ok I guess, but it doesn't
| make my eyes light up. Random finds for no other reason than
| just-because* are the real treasures here. (* Which is also why
| the current article is such an instant classic.)
| dang wrote:
| I don't want to bloat the parent comment so I'm going to
| macroexpand parts of it here.
| dang wrote:
| [1] For the curious, here they are. Most won't be visible
| unless you have 'showdead' turned on in your profile:
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37355607 - Sept 2023
| (0 comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37355390 - Sept 2023
| (0 comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37354254 - Sept 2023
| (0 comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37351991 - Sept 2023
| (0 comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37349283 - Sept 2023
| (0 comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37347478 - Sept 2023
| (0 comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37344146 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37343169 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37341092 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37339808 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37337460 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37337274 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37335732 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37332795 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37332357 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37330688 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37329762 - Aug 2023 (1
| comment)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37323370 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37318295 - Aug 2023 (4
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37317859 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge: Why is this bridge
| here?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37316842 -
| Aug 2023 (0 comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37313777 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37312700 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37309738 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37306042 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _Solving the Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37305110 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37301368 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
| dang wrote:
| [2] _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37135725 - Aug 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35033020 - March 2023
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34235455 - Jan 2023 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34082009 - Dec 2022 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33047225 - Oct 2022 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32638195 - Aug 2022 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32424060 - Aug 2022 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860332 - June 2022
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31507037 - May 2022 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31396481 - May 2022 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30604924 - March 2022
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30159917 - Feb 2022 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29935495 - Jan 2022 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29414458 - Dec 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29370245 - Nov 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29342268 - Nov 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29299497 - Nov 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28961349 - Oct 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28825125 - Oct 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28269668 - Aug 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28259364 - Aug 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28230461 - Aug 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27505912 - June 2021
| (0 comments)
|
| _Random things that correlate with each other_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27420587 - June 2021
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27086785 - May 2021 (0
| comments)
|
| _A List of Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26531494 - March 2021
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26479795 - March 2021
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24929219 - Oct 2020 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24700847 - Oct 2020 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24674080 - Oct 2020 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24142621 - Aug 2020 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24040761 - Aug 2020 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22320904 - Feb 2020 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20269912 - June 2019
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19971116 - May 2019 (0
| comments)
|
| _Nicolas Cage Film Appearances Associated with Pool
| Drownings_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19433624
| - March 2019 (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19207507 - Feb 2019 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18914990 - Jan 2019 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18891348 - Jan 2019 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18523096 - Nov 2018 (0
| comments)
|
| _Secret correlations the government wants to hide (
| /sarkasm off)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18416052 - Nov 2018 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious correlations, or how cheese consumption
| correlates to death by sheets_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17992300 - Sept 2018
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17552811 - July 2018
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16911513 - April 2018
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13861919 - March 2017
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13822944 - March 2017
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13379601 - Jan 2017 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13374807 - Jan 2017 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13212945 - Dec 2016 (0
| comments)
|
| _15 Insane Things That Correlate with Each Other_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12932331 - Nov 2016 (0
| comments)
|
| _15 insane things that correlate with each other_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12874313 - Nov 2016 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12806714 - Oct 2016 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12289362 - Aug 2016 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11028637 - Feb 2016 (0
| comments)
|
| _15 Things That Strangely Correlate with Eachother_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10960967 - Jan 2016 (1
| comment)
|
| _Spurious correlations (Ridiculous things that
| inexplicably correlate)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10913561 - Jan 2016 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10623264 - Nov 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10621376 - Nov 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10488448 - Nov 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _15 Insane things that correlate with each other_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10044953 - Aug 2015 (1
| comment)
|
| _Spurious Correlations: "Now a ridiculous book"_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9726812 - June 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9720788 - June 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations (aka correlation does not imply
| causation)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9711267
| - June 2015 (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9698236 - June 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9607504 - May 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _US spending on science, space, and technology correlates
| with Suicides_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9480869 - May 2015 (3
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9187178 - March 2015
| (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9056358 - Feb 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlation_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9017468 - Feb 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8950016 - Jan 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8847385 - Jan 2015 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlation_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8088193 - July 2014 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8046149 - July 2014 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7896766 - June 2014 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7778546 - May 2014 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7748697 - May 2014 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7738836 - May 2014 (0
| comments)
|
| _Per capita cheese consumption correlates with deaths by
| bedsheets_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7737932 -
| May 2014 (3 comments)
|
| _Insane Things That Correlate With Each Other_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7730750 - May 2014 (0
| comments)
|
| _Spurious correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7730020 - May 2014 (1
| comment)
|
| _Spurious Correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7729430 - May 2014 (1
| comment)
|
| _US Spending on Science Correlates with Suicides by
| Suffocation_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7728003
| - May 2014 (0 comments)
|
| _Spurious correlations_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7726004 - May 2014 (0
| comments)
|
| _Things that correlate_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7721376 - May 2014 (0
| comments)
|
| _Things that correlate_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7716661 - May 2014 (1
| comment)
| tylervigen wrote:
| Wild! Thank you for fixing it. I wonder why it was originally
| banned. If it's something I can fix to avoid in the future,
| I'd like to address it.
| dang wrote:
| I'm getting there! bear with me...
|
| Edit: done. Sorry we banned your site and I sure hope you
| write more in the future!
|
| Edit 2: if you'll excuse the morbid aspect, your article
| reminded me of another one I read this year about a long-
| unsolved murder that took place near where the author grew
| up, somewhere in the midwest I think. Unfortunately I can't
| find it right now (maybe it will ring a bell for someone) -
| but it was also super-well-researched (though less in real
| time), and maybe I'm wrong but I think the author has a
| similar sensibility to yours. We need more writing like
| this. (Edit: I found it:
| http://www.codex99.com/unclassified/patty-and-michael.html.
| I ran across it because of awesome things previously posted
| to HN from that author's site:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=codex99.com. "
| _Along the way I've learned more than is probably healthy
| about Canadian quintuplets, murdered teenage cheerleaders,
| young stage actresses, middle-aged academic cartographers
| and elderly Victorian taxonomers._ " -
| http://codex99.com/about.html)
|
| Edit 3: oops I didn't answer your question. I'd say the
| thing to fix in the future is the insufficient number of
| awesomely-written, intriguing articles by you. This kind of
| thing is hard to come by!
| [deleted]
| davikr wrote:
| It kept getting flagged for no reason too.
| dang wrote:
| No, it was getting killed by software, not flagged. If it has
| been flagged (enough to get killed), you would have seen
| [flagged][dead] rather than just [dead].
| yihanwu1024 wrote:
| I walked on that bridge on 8/30.
|
| That night, this article appeared in my Google feed.
|
| Today 9/2 it's on my Hacker News feed.
|
| Wtf?
| exmadscientist wrote:
| And I drove under it yesterday! (Not so easy given I live in
| Seattle these days.) The world's a smaller place than we
| realize.
| irrational wrote:
| > She described the "baby boom" more acutely than I had ever
| heard it described before. For her, it was a "swarm of hundreds
| of kids" the exact same age.
|
| I grew up in the 80s (Gen X). We didn't have hundreds of kids,
| but there were dozens of of kids in every neighborhood we lived
| in (we lived in Indiana, Texas, Colorado, Florida, and
| California). My kids have grown up mainly in the 2010s-present.
| There might be a single other kid the age of one of my kids in
| the neighborhood. There just aren't many kids anymore. Certainly
| not like when I was a kid and especially not like when my parents
| were kids.
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| I think it's unfortunate and a bit annoying that people seem to
| have forgotten (or never learned) the meaning of the Baby
| Boomers label. Somehow the group called "boomers" has expanded
| (by some erroneous definitions) into the mid-'60s. Ridiculous.
|
| The same thing has happened to "Millennials." Overall, any
| labeling after the Baby Boomers is stupid and should be avoided
| at all costs. If you want to talk about a particular group,
| simply refer to an age range. Then there's no debate.
| fireflash38 wrote:
| Have you considered that instead the people who have kids are
| priced out of your area?
| efitz wrote:
| That was a fantastic article and some amazing sleuthing! Thank
| you for tracking it down. A quarter of the way into the article I
| _needed_ to know why that bridge was there, and I've never been
| to Minnesota and have no relatives there :-)
|
| Anyway, your solution to the mystery was very insightful and
| probably applies to many domains of inquiry.
| UberFly wrote:
| Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge. The
| author is a human bloodhound. Highest praise for the good read.
| tetris11 wrote:
| Fantastic read. I'm impressed at how forthcoming various US city
| officials and employees are about giving away infrastructure
| plans to anyone who demands it.
|
| Freedom of Information act, sure. But try gaining access to the
| same level of info that Tyler got here in a country like
| Germany[0]. In theory very easy, in practice you will be sent in
| a vicious circle of disinterested officials passing the buck.
|
| 0:
| https://www.dpma.de/english/our_office/law/freedom_of_inform...
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I imagine even in Germany the officials would enjoy dealing
| with a kind person expressing enthusiasm about some obscure
| records and is willing to put in work themselves. It's not like
| US public employees are famed for not passing the buck.
| bombcar wrote:
| In my experience these city officials are almost overjoyed that
| someone is even asking the question.
|
| They have little community meetings when talking about
| developments and road/bike changes and almost nobody attends
| them unless there is a big controversy.
|
| I actually enjoyed it and got undivided attention from multiple
| planners and left feeling they knew a lot more about it than I
| did and had though of lots of the concerns you could bring up.
| c0nsumer wrote:
| I've had the same experience. I once noticed that a section
| of local highway had been restriped so instead of it being
| just white dashes it had white dashes followed immediately by
| a brief black dash. This is a fairly light colored concrete
| highway that runs east-west.
|
| I was curious about this new striping, emailed, and very
| quickly got an interesting and friendly response about how
| they are studying this new striping technique because it
| makes the lines more visible. Being light colored pavement,
| running east-west (facing sunrise/sunset), and in an area
| where it rains frequently (which changes the pavement color)
| this made a ton of sense.
|
| I think that asking a technical question politely was a big
| help, but the folks who replied seemed more like talking with
| a fellow engineer who was excited to explain why they are
| doing what they are doing.
|
| (I've had other similar experiences when asking questions
| about / suggesting light timing changes, etc.)
| bombcar wrote:
| I've been listening to City Planner Plays on YouTube as he
| plays City Skylines and he has quite interesting patter
| about the behind the scenes work for development. Many
| interesting things come up you might not even realize.
| tylervigen wrote:
| I was pleasantly impressed too! I've always had good luck
| getting replies from officials, but I got particularly good
| responses from the folks named in the article.
|
| Glad you enjoyed it!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| This reminds me of _Outside Lies Magic_ [0], a somewhat odd (but
| cool) book, that explores stuff like this.
|
| [0] https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-r-
| stilgoe/ou...
| ginko wrote:
| >It's not in an area that is particularly walkable, and it
| doesn't connect any establishments that obviously need to be
| connected. So why was it built?
|
| As a dedicated pedestrian I find it baffling why you people would
| even be wondering about this. You have to provide ways to cross
| highways as pedestrian, otherwise you just cut off huge parts of
| land.
|
| I generally find the American approach to road planning where you
| have buildings and neighborhoods that can only be accessed by
| vehicle startling. What are you supposed to do if you don't have
| a car?
| tylervigen wrote:
| Oh I agree! I didn't spell it out in the article (I am the
| author), but I am a huge advocate of walkability. But if you
| gave me $1M and asked me to make this area more walkable, I
| still wouldn't build a bridge there. It's just so terribly
| unwalkable that that project would not even make my list. I
| would start with some sidewalks to get folks off the roads.
|
| Funny story: the original residents of Richfield push back
| against building sidewalks, because they thought NOT having
| sidewalks would make them more distinguishable from Minneapolis
| as a suburb. That is bonkers to me.
| speed_spread wrote:
| Typical 1950's thinking. Like mass transit, sidewalks are for
| poor people who can't afford a car. It's an early form of
| transhumanism. Car + Driver, Man + Machine.
| bombcar wrote:
| The article states litter collects on the end of the bridge. So
| _someone_ is using it!
|
| You find many of these structures where freeways were cut
| through in the 60s and 70s because cutting walkability was
| considered a serious issue.
|
| Even if only used ten times a day that's still 3,650 trips a
| year.
|
| Things like this bridge should be encouraged! Cars can drive
| around "the long way" - but pedestrians sent more than a
| hundred yards out of their way are seriously discouraged.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| > article states litter collects on the end of the bridge. So
| someone is using it!
|
| Or litter that would blow onto the interstate if a bit
| further away instead gets stuck as it can't climb stairs.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| Didn't read the article, eh?
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| > As a dedicated pedestrian I find it baffling why you people
| would even be wondering about this.
|
| Full agree, so the stance of the Grainger guys made me chuckle:
| We hate this bridge, cos we hate Taco Bell and it accumulates
| litter. (:
| BlandDuck wrote:
| I know it is popular to assume that americans are crazy and
| ignorant, but part of the puzzle is that there were plenty of
| other ways to cross the highway. There are two other bridges
| just a few hundred feet away (a foot being about one-third of a
| meter):
|
| "Why would you build a pedestrian bridge to an empty field?!
| That makes even less sense. Yes there is a neighborhood south
| of the field, but if you are in that neighborhood surely you
| could just use the sidewalk on one of those other two bridges a
| few hundred feet to the east or west."
| potatolicious wrote:
| ... Have you ever walked over a freeway on the "sidewalk"
| that's provided? I actually found that part of the quote
| amusing/revealing. As a frequent pedestrian who didn't own a
| car for many years, but yet navigated many a suburban area, I
| would _vastly_ prefer the independent footbridge over a
| narrow 5 ' wide strip while 4,000 lb boxes whipped past me at
| 50mph.
|
| I've done it, and I can tell you besides being a hair-raising
| experience, one of the few thoughts that goes through your
| head in that moment is "I am meant to be less than those
| people in the cars in every way"
|
| > _" I know it is popular to assume that americans are crazy
| and ignorant"_
|
| On the contrary, I don't think this infrastructure is crazy
| or ignorant at all, but it is pretty emblematic of the way
| America defines class. Pedestrians/people who don't own cars
| are nearly subhuman, barely given any consideration at all in
| the best cases, and actively campaigned against at worst.
|
| The way the road infrastructure is for pedestrians isn't
| _crazy_ , it's entirely rational under a value system where
| they have no value.
| [deleted]
| quickthrowman wrote:
| This pedestrian bridge is 2 blocks east of the Nicollet Ave
| bridge over 494 and about 5 blocks west of the Portland Ave
| bridge over 494. Both Nicollet and Portland Ave have sidewalks
| on both sides of the bridge. The bridges are old and not
| particularly pedestrian friendly, but pedestrians do use them,
| I've walked across the Portland Ave bridge a few times and
| didn't find it dangerous or scary.
|
| Anyways, this section of 494 is being reconstructed over the
| next few years, I'm curious whether the pedestrian bridge will
| survive or not.
|
| Here is the physical location:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/TXfx7smGDDym3V46A?g_st=ic
| gipp wrote:
| I'm about as strident an advocate for better walkability in
| America as you'll find, but this is still a silly post. The OP
| is not about the question of why one would build pedestrian
| bridges in general, but why this _particular_ one exists in
| this _particular_ spot, when it is clearly of no value to
| anyone and has no obvious rhyme or reason to its positioning,
| having no connection to any other pedestrian infrastructure.
| Which you know perfectly well if you read any of the post.
|
| As far as your latter paragraph goes... Read any other comment
| thread vaguely related to this topic, I suppose. That exact
| conversation is had on this site at least weekly.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| The post buried the lede that the pedestrian bridge was at
| the end of a long avenue that was cut off by an Interstate.
| It continued the avenue for pedestrians.
|
| While I enjoyed the shoe-leather reflected by the piece, I
| disagree with the central assumption that reconnecting
| neighborhood roads cut by Interstates should be an exception
| rather than a rule. In my city several areas are oddly
| isolated from one another due to highways that were a
| cohesive community fabric before. It's always an insult to
| the local neighborhood to seal places off and I'm saddened
| conventional wisdom today would require a special exception
| to heal the cut.
| drewcoo wrote:
| To plow an interstate through a city, first seize some land
| through imminent domain. Better to seize it from the poor
| because they can't afford any legal struggle.
|
| This effectively splits poor neighborhoods.
|
| And that can be used as a tool to move or remove those
| populations.
|
| Combine this with redlining for extra "fun" for anybody
| black.
|
| https://www.history.com/news/interstate-highway-system-
| infra...
| imchillyb wrote:
| > And that was by design, she noted. Policymakers and
| planners saw highway construction as a convenient way to
| raze neighborhoods considered undesirable or blighted.
|
| With absolutely no citation, quote, or reference, these
| types of statements are pure propaganda.
|
| That propaganda is found right at the top of this piece,
| so we can know exactly what to expect from that supposed
| journalist.
|
| Garbage. No facts, just hate.
| tylervigen wrote:
| >I disagree with the central assumption that reconnecting
| neighborhood roads cut by Interstates should be an
| exception rather than a rule.
|
| Author here: That was not meant to be my central
| assumption! Sorry if it came across that way. I only called
| it out to note that the lack of walkability in the area
| made this bridge stand out. I wish that area (and other
| areas in my community) were more walkable and bike-
| friendly.
| pohl wrote:
| _I only called it out to note that the lack of
| walkability in the area made this bridge stand out._
|
| As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the piece, this smells
| like ignoring the obvious answer to the question. The
| place lacks it. The bridge provides more of it. Mystery
| solved, no? Need meets provision!
|
| I felt the same way when I read about the Grainger
| employees complaining about the litter -- which is a
| clue, evidence of people walking there -- but you didn't
| follow that thread.
| true_religion wrote:
| If you were assuming the bridge was to provide
| walkability then the next question would be "why connect
| these two points instead of somewhere more populous?"
|
| That would lead you right down the same search as the
| author.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| Well, yes, the specific question is not exactly useful to the
| vast majority of the people of the world, but I think that's
| a particularly harsh criteria.
|
| And, I think that's not really the point of the article. The
| most useful thing came at the turning point, the advice that
| allowed the solution to be found - "...stop looking at old
| documents: 'no one writes down the real reason for
| infrastructure projects.' She said I needed to look for
| people in power."
|
| I think that's pretty good advice, and has obvious extensions
| that makes it pretty useful.
| _dain_ wrote:
| +1
|
| "it's not walkable, so let's not build any walking
| infrastructure"
|
| is there anything more perfectly self-defeating?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I agree with your point.
|
| And this bridge was built a long time ago when prices were
| different - but a bridge like that would probably costs >$1M
| today.
|
| If you're trying to improve the walkability of an area -
| building a pedestrian bridge over a highway that hardly any
| pedestrian will ever use is probably not the best use of
| funding.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| Millions for cars but not one cent for pedestrians. Nice.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| It's about allocating funds. If you have $1M to spend for
| pedestrians. You should use that on things pedestrians
| will use. Not on a pedestrian bridge no one will use.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| People did and apparently do use the bridge. Lots of
| them, according to the article.
|
| In any event, the bridge was a _mitigation_ of the
| degredation of a walkable neighborhood that the Federal
| government was lavishly funding. People wouldn 't use the
| bridge if the Federal highway didn't exist, so ... the
| result of your logic is build neither? Of course not, you
| prefer people to be in their cars, probably electric
| ones, failing entirely to see failed mitigation after
| failed mitigation of the original misstep which was to
| build the highway in the first place.
| MereInterest wrote:
| > but a bridge like that would probably costs >$1M today.
|
| For comparison, from a brief search for "cost per mile of
| road".
|
| * $2-3 million per mile of two-lane rural road.
|
| * $4 million per mile to expand a highway from four lanes
| to six lanes.
|
| * $120k/mile/year in road maintenance.
| baq wrote:
| Don't want cars someplace? Don't build roads there.
|
| Don't want pedestrians somewhere? Don't build sidewalks and
| footpaths there.
|
| The way infrastructure is designed has tremendous
| implications on demand of modes of transportation. Of
| course nobody will walk anywhere if it's unreasonable to
| walk anywhere.
|
| The problem is walkability is so bad people don't even stop
| to think if they need to take a car. The just do and drive
| 800 ft down the road to visit neighbors. Insane.
| tylervigen wrote:
| Author here. That is definitely not what I meant to imply at
| all! I'm sorry if you interpreted it that way.
|
| I love walkability and am an advocate of pedestrian and bike-
| centric city planning. I wrote that sentence to indicate that
| the bridge was especially surprising to me given the context
| of the lack of walkability nearby. i.e., "Why make THIS
| SPECIFIC PLACE walkable if nothing else around here is?"
| browningstreet wrote:
| It was clear... truly it was. There are some pretty grumpy
| and unnecessarily dismissive readings of your delightful
| quest here in this forum.
| callalex wrote:
| Don't worry, for some reason there is a tiny contingent of
| people who just HAVE to let you know that they, in fact,
| know more than you because only THEY know that cars are bad
| for the environment.
| nabakin wrote:
| The first part of this comment could only be made by someone
| who did not read the whole article.
|
| Tyler was not saying there was no point to having that bridge.
| He was saying given how other bridges were placed according to
| important landmarks, he did not understand why this one was
| placed in this location seemingly without any important
| landmarks.
|
| You can believe more bridges should exist without needing some
| sort of important landmark and believe that it is strange this
| bridge was placed in this location without an important
| landmark given the other bridges were placed in locations with
| important landmarks. These two things are not mutually
| exclusive.
|
| Of course it turned out that there was an important landmark
| (the school/church!) but that was Tyler's thought process.
| f1shy wrote:
| Live in a city where no car is needed, I suppose.
| petarb wrote:
| Love this type of historical research article. Thank you for
| sharing
| pix128 wrote:
| It's a sad state of affairs when somebody feels compelled to do
| this much work to determine why a pedestrian bridge (that
| connects two neighborhoods) needs to exist.
| mark-r wrote:
| This is cool! I've probably driven under that bridge thousands of
| times, and honestly I've paid more attention to the Grainger than
| to the bridge. Congratulations on digging into the story so
| doggedly.
| marstall wrote:
| truly awesome research! love the portrait of the time the bridge
| was built, of a vibrant community of families all the same age,
| about be be split in two by 200 yards of pavement.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I will think of this bridge as a metaphor for dead code.
| tylervigen wrote:
| Author here! Glad you all enjoyed the article. It was a fun
| journey into the history of my community.
|
| For the record: I am an advocate of walkability and think there
| should be more bridges, not fewer. I just wondered how that one
| got there given the context of limited walkability in the area.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| I enjoyed reading this. Write more, you're good at it.
| Reason077 wrote:
| The UK has many similar pedestrian bridges crossing motorways
| and other major roads. There must be thousands of them
| throughout the country! Wherever there is an existing right of
| way (ie: foot path or bridal path) you can't just block it by
| building a motorway or other obstruction. So usually that means
| building a bridge!
| pm215 wrote:
| True for motorways, but even on busy dual carriageways
| sometimes the planners just say "the footpath crosses the
| dual carriageway on the flat", ignoring that this comes
| pretty near to being an effective closure of the right of
| way; there are some on the A14 near me like that.
|
| This forum thread lists some other examples:
| https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41259
| adolph wrote:
| Y'all even have bridges for boats
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontcysyllte_Aqueduct
| bufordtwain wrote:
| That was a great read, particularly the frequent hidden notes
| :) thanks for taking such an immense amount of time to research
| and write it all up.
| dang wrote:
| The notes are so good and so amusing that the article is
| worth reading just to enjoy the notes. Don't miss this
| rabbit-out-of-hat moment:
|
| _Believe it or not, I was specifically trained by the
| military as a geo-spatial analyst to identify bridges in
| black and white aerial photographs taken in the 1960s._
|
| Also... @tylervigen, the note after "Peter Wilson of the
| Bridges Division got back to me very quickly" doesn't work
| for me in either of the browsers I tried. I want to know what
| about Peter Wilson of the Bridges Division getting back to
| you quickly merited a note!
| userabchn wrote:
| As others have said, it was an enjoyable read, and I thank you
| (and everyone else involved) for caring. One small bit of
| feedback: I suggest being a bit more subtle about how much work
| you did. At times I wondered if you were telling us things just
| to try to impress us with your dedication rather than because
| they were an important part of the story.
| kasztelan_ wrote:
| Huh, it didn't struck me as such. But maybe because I read it
| partially over the course of the day.
|
| In any case the author DID make a lot of effort researching
| this and I can imagine it was not always pleasant hitting
| dead ends.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Sadly, Howard Kyllo passed away
|
| https://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/0000423925/
| flir wrote:
| This was great. I too go on these ridiculous local history
| research binges, but I've never had a good model of how to
| write one up. So thanks for the interesting story, and the
| template.
| qingcharles wrote:
| This article is so wholesome, thank you. I was going to just
| scroll through it real quick, but I got so engrossed and read
| every word. I died laughing about the Kansas City bit!
| markphip wrote:
| I really enjoyed this. I did not really know where it was going
| at first but it got really interesting. My daughter is in
| school to become an Archivist so it really started to get my
| attention as I went further into it.
|
| I do have to say in the beginning of the post, I was thinking
| it was going to end up being about pork and politics and in a
| sense that is how it ended.
|
| I loved this so much ... "While I am dedicated to this search,
| I am not about to fly down to Kansas City to dig through
| federal archives, especially when those documents may or may
| not be there...
|
| ...just kidding. Of course I flew down to Kansas City to dig
| through the federal archives"
|
| Thanks for creating this
| iandanforth wrote:
| Really enjoyed the article! Your tenacity was impressive.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| This is the third place I've encountered your work in as many
| days. I first read it from a social media post, then saw it had
| been covered in the Star Tribune, and now here. Good to see
| such hard work getting noticed and appreciated.
| echelon wrote:
| This was such a fun read and a fantastic little mystery.
|
| Thank you so much for sharing your project with the world and
| for making it so entertaining. (Glad you found the smoking gun,
| too.)
| justincormack wrote:
| There were fascinating protests against footbridges when first
| created in London, as the people felt they were losing their
| priority against the car. I copied out these notes from the
| book Leadville about the history of the A40 and the building of
| the first footbridge here
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/justincormack/256217251
|
| The Bridge of Fools, the first footbridge over a road in
| Britain
|
| In 1938 the inhabitants started to protest about the rising
| death toll on Western Avenue, the "Avenue of Speed and Death".
| They petitioned the Ministry of Transport to impose a speed
| limit of twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. The ministry said
| that would be an "ingenious provision" to save lives, but it
| would be against "the whole object of constructing a road free
| from congested traffic".
|
| On 21 July 1938 the protestors filed across Western Avenue from
| the Approach, and then back, causing a huge tailback. The next
| day the Ministry arranged to build two bridges, one here and
| one by Gipsy Corner, much to the disgust of the protestors, who
| thought it would encourage cars to drive faster and to force
| pedestrians off more roads onto bridges and subways. A week
| later a thousand people demonstrated again for "their right to
| cross on the level".
|
| In September the hastily erected bridge was complete, and five
| hundred people demonstrated against it again. The bridge became
| a tourist attraction and it was "quite usual to see people from
| other districts coming to look at it".
|
| In October torchlight processions were held on the road every
| evening for a week, with a dog with a red light attached to it
| and four bearers carrying a coffin, and placards saying "We
| want crossings not coffins".
|
| The war brought and end to the protests, and for a few years
| the traffic.
|
| from Leadville: A Biography of the A40 by Edward Platt
| ShadowBanThis01 wrote:
| Sounds like the kind of hypocrisy you'd hear from "urbanists"
| today: Complain about pedestrian deaths, then complain about
| a thing that prevents them.
| Reason077 wrote:
| The speed limit was indeed reduced, in 2020, to 30 mph on the
| elevated eastern section of the A40 (Westway), but remains 40
| mph on the Western Avenue part.
| tiahura wrote:
| You see these "bridges to nowhere" in analogous places in a lot
| of the midwest. I think the city planner nailed it - it was
| built in anticipation of development. I.e., back in the 60's
| they made guesses about growth and some of those guesses were
| wrong. There are probably many others, but these catch our
| attention because they're 50 feet up in the air.
| Two9A wrote:
| Honestly, you see this all over the world where anticipated
| development either hasn't materialised or funds have dried
| up. The A57(M) freeway through Manchester, England was
| planned to continue from its current endpoint southwards, but
| the rest of it... never happened. And now there's a bridge
| over the A34 that doesn't connect to anywhere.
|
| As I recall, the M1 emerging from London starts at "Junction
| 4" and there were three more junctions planned deeper into
| central London, but that part of the road never happened
| either.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| Great article!
|
| Reminded me of the "Leave as you found" rule:
|
| Say you're hiking through some fields, and come upon a fence.
| If it's open, don't close it. If it's closed, don't pass
| through leaving it open.
|
| Why? Because building a fence takes effort. Maintaining it
| too. And if whoever built that fence left it open, probably
| had a good reason to do so.
|
| Read: _until you understand why_ it 's there & in the state
| it's in, don't mess with that. If you _do_ know who put the
| thing there & how it's used, then by all means have at it.
|
| And the detective work here: hacker spirit in optima forma!
| Kudoz to the author.
| quinncom wrote:
| Have you spoken with Roman Mars yet? I hope this will be a 99%
| Invisible episode soon.
| asmithmd1 wrote:
| Thanks for the thorough research, not just on-line, but
| including calling people.
|
| I occasionally go down rabbit holes like this and I have not
| gotten the helpful responses from officials I have contacted in
| the New England area. I don't know if I was telegraphing some
| agenda the officials did not want to further, or if it was
| because you were dealing with "Minnesota nice" people. I first
| heard of Minnesota nice when a curmudgeonly co-worker was
| grumbling about calling Anderson Window, "I hate calling them,
| they are so effing nice!"
| jeffrallen wrote:
| > She told me to stop looking at old documents: "no one writes
| down the real reason for infrastructure projects." She said I
| needed to look for people in power.
|
| Wow, the whole thing was interesting, but that insight was the
| most interesting.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Hang on. The MnDot report says "Average Daily Traffic:151,000".
| But. That must be the car traffic under the bridge - surely 151K
| people don't walk across it each day. And if so, why would you
| measure that? It's like measuring how much water flows under the
| Golden Gate bridge and ignoring how many cars go over it.
|
| We are just so car focused it influences everything and we don't
| notice
| tylervigen wrote:
| Ha! Love the analogy. I agree. That statistic is totally
| unhelpful.
| ogurechny wrote:
| For example, the number describes how much traffic will go to
| alternative paths in case of some accident or planned
| construction work that blocks the road. Then it can be quickly
| deduced how far they should reroute drivers to get them use the
| roads that handle the additional load (instead of local streets
| with low limit on throughput).
| codingdave wrote:
| > The MnDot report...
|
| You are looking at a report from Minnesota's DOT. Their job is
| to be concerned with roads and cars. Sure, our society is
| overly focused on cars, but you can hardly blame the DOT for
| putting out reports on their own subject area.
| neilv wrote:
| My (least) favorite pedestrian bridge curiosity:
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/dJZew2G2EJJcEgvP9
| 42deg21'21.6"N 71deg06'49.6"W Memorial Drive, Cambridge,
| MA 02139 USA
|
| Look at how far a pedestrian has to walk, just to cross a 4-lane
| street, to get to the park. And close to half the walk is uphill,
| just to elevate over the street.
|
| Every time I see it, it makes me angry. (Partly because this
| ridiculous imposition of a pedestrian bridge is emblematic of the
| area's crazy emphasis on cars. When Boston or Cambridge gets a
| little strip of park green space, they somehow tend to end up
| with a freeway of angry cars right up alongside it.)
| Ekaros wrote:
| Seems that this is some sort of accessibility design. It really
| should combine both stairs and ramp. But that might have cost
| bit more...
| Cerium wrote:
| Any ramp style bridges that are U shaped annoy me. I much
| prefer ramp style bridges that are H or Z shaped so you can
| make productive walking in your goal direction for both the up
| and down legs of the trip.
| tylervigen wrote:
| Author of the original article here. I actually remember that
| bridge! It's such a huge mass of concrete. For me it is
| memorable because it's right next to the only Microcenter in
| Cambridge. If I wanted to buy a Raspberry Pi while in law
| school (more common of an occurrence than I care to admit),
| that's where I'd go.
| fla wrote:
| The advantage of the soft slope is that it can be used with a
| wheelchair.
|
| Edit: ...and of course bikes etc
| Ekaros wrote:
| Bikes can do pretty extreme climbs without much issues. And
| probably would hate that tight u-turn.
| worklaptopacct wrote:
| City planners in Warsaw, Poland have apparently noticed that
| underground passages are actually an inconvenience to
| pedestrians and now I'm seeing a trend where such crossings are
| starting to get surface-level crosswalks as well, such as at
| Rondo Dmowskiego[0], a principal public transport hub. Such
| changes are a life quality improvement to people with
| disabilities - elevators are breaking left and right, cutting
| off people who rely on them. Right now I live in Berlin and the
| public transport notification page is always filled with
| reports of broken elevators all around the city.
|
| [0] https://www.transport-
| publiczny.pl/img/20210430130147Dmowsk2...
| c0nsumer wrote:
| I don't know this area, so I don't know how good it is there,
| but these are pretty nice if you're cycling. I imagine if one's
| in a (motorized) wheelchair it's a fair option as well. But it
| sure seems like there should also be a set of steps cutting off
| much of the distance for those who can/want to use steps
| instead. Maybe even with a bike gutter along the steps like so
| many transit systems have in their stations.
| kdmccormick wrote:
| Ugh, there is so much to be angry about when it comes to Boston
| area parkways. First and foremost, they are maintained by the
| MA Dept of Conservation and Recreation under the guise that
| their purpose is to provide access to the river parks (rather
| than their real puprose, providing drivers access to downtown
| Boston/Cambridge). And among MA agencies, DCR is paradoxically
| backwards when it comes to providing bike- and ped-friendly
| improvements. The DOTs of MA, Boston and Cambridge are somehow
| way more progressive when it comes to these things. Just
| compare the Somerville/Cambridge community paths and new Boston
| core cycletracks with the stupid little "bike paths" on either
| side of the Charles.
|
| My favorite un-fun fact was that James Storrow was an ardent
| advocate for the public parkland along the river, and opposed
| building a highway on the land. After his death, MA thanked him
| for his service by... building a highway through the park and
| naming it Storrow Drive.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| Mine is right across the river [1]... There are (or were) old
| 1930s stairs from the deck of the BU bridge across the river to
| ... nothing. Access to the pedestrian path on the south side of
| the river requires backtracking a quarter mile to a pedestrian
| bridge.
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fenway%E2%80%93Kenmore,+Bo...
| tosser0001 wrote:
| That bridge also took over 2 years to complete at an absurd
| cost after the one it replaced was damaged. While it was under
| construction, there was a temporary red light installed at the
| intersection of Magazine St. which was far better all around as
| it allowed pedestrians to just cross the street much closer to
| the only real stores in the immediate area (and a Starbucks,
| now closed.)
|
| While the bridge is well-built and provides wheelchair and bike
| access, its location is inconvenient. It's so far away from any
| of the few available amenities that many people just try to
| dart across the road from the park and community pool. Two
| people have been struck in killed trying to cross in the past
| few years.
|
| Other than a single water bubbler at the BU boathouse, that
| only went in a couple of years ago, there isn't a single place
| to get a drink (let alone buy one or get a snack) the entire 4+
| mile length of the river in Cambridge from the Museum of
| Science to the Elliot St. Bridge, without crossing Memorial
| Drive. It's unclear to me why they just don't take down the
| footbridge and make the stop light with crosswalk permanent.
| There seems to be some issue with the fact that Cambridge
| itself doesn't really have control over the road itself or the
| land along the River as it's controlled by the Department of
| Conservation & Recreation (the "dcr") which is a State agency.
|
| The footbridge that I find oddest is the one across Rt. 2 past
| Alewife just over the Cambridge line in Arlington.
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/8JrUQHn2j4B7TuE56
| 42.399443, -71.147645 Arlington, Massachusetts
|
| I assume it has a similar story to the OP in that whatever
| utility it may have had has long since passed.
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