Talk:Vasco da Gama Bridge

Untitled

Vasco da Gama Bridge article -- Where is this bridge located? What country? What state? What city? What body of water?

Span

What is length of main span? Tabletop 06:12, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

450 meters according to this source [1] Cacophony 20:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Length

The article mentions different total lengths, the main article says 17,200 m (56,381 ft) and the infobox says 12,300 m (40,354 ft). Which is correct?

I noticed that too Sandpiper 23:49, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Measuring the length on GoogleEarth and being very generous, I don't get more than 10,400 m - something very wrong here....Paul venter 20:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It all has to do with the definition of "bridge". In truth, the bridge is only 450 m-long. The rest are viaducts. But, as the viaducts go over the river and marshes, they are counted in as well. The south-side viaduct ends almost at the petrol station here: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=lisbon,pt&ie=UTF8&ll=38.727606,-8.990765&spn=0.004294,0.010729&t=k&om=0 . Now you can measure again. --maf 11:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Err, actually I went there and measured it myself. I got 12,500 m on the outer lane. Could that be the 12,300 m that were initially in the infobox? And where do the other 5,000 m come from - access viaducts? That would be cheating! I'll look for some reliable source before changing the article. --maf 03:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

12,300 m is the total length over water, 17,200 m is the total length of the structure, including the viaducts aver the land/swamp lands.

http://www.lusoponte.pt/pvg_projecto_estatisticas.htm

• The above is an unsigned contribution from User:165.124.161.191. Now, 13 years later, I came across this discrepancy between sources and decided to look into it. I find that that page no longer exists, but it is archived here. And what it says is that the 17,200 m is the total length of the "travessia", i.e. "crossing", while the 12,300 m is the total length "em ponte e viadutos", i.e. "on bridges and viaducts". In other words, the longer figure is for the route that the bridge forms part of. Hope this helps. --76.69.46.228 (talk) 07:57, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Cost

What did the bridge cost? I understand it didn't cost anything for the government, but how high were the private investments? And how high were they estimated? Any links? Migdejong (talk) 14:21, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Rangeviews

What is a "rangeview" (first paragraph)? Can't find the word (perhaps a typo?) in online dictionaries. —Torontonian1 (talk) 09:12, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Misinformation about the length of the bridge

Germash19 pushes misinformation [2][3][4] into the article that the bridge is the longest in Europe and at the same time is not the longest in Europe. What nonsense does he speak? --Александр Мотин (talk) 10:00, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I do not see an explanation for deleting the text confirmed by reliable sources. Returned it.--Germash19 (talk) 21:44, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Before we carry on with a discussion of whether the information is (a) correct and (b) relevant for the article, can we first please fix the language and clarify what is actually being claimed here? The current note "When carrying out the border between Europe and Asia along the Kerch Strait..." is garbled English and makes no sense. Germash19, could you please explain what you are trying to say in that note? You can't "carry out" a border in English. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:11, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

I reckon he means that depending on the definition of Europe's eastern border, the Crimean bridges does not fully belong to Europe. Anyway, this is irrelevant as the so-called "Crimean bridge" is not a single bridge, but a series of bridges with overland ways in between, and no single bridge of the connection reach the Vasco da Gama bridge in length. -- H005 (talk) 21:53, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

So you would want to take out the entire statement about comparing the two bridges and keep saying VdG is the longest? That's yet another issue that hasn't been raised before. Is your statement sourced though? Media seem to be fairly unanimous in describing the Crimean bridge as longer (i.e. measuring it in terms of its full 18 km). Are there sources contradicting that, along the lines of your argument? Otherwise this would have the appearance of WP:OR. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:54, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

H005, you are mistaken. Crimean Bridge are two (road and railway) continuous unitary structures over land (Tuzla Island) and water (Kerch Strait) from the Taman Peninsula to the Kerch Peninsula. --Insider (talk) 12:01, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

To Future Perfect at Sunrise. «When considering the border between Europe and Asia along the Kerch Strait, the Crimean Bridge is transcontinental and connects Europe and Asia». Is it clear? Similar situation - Istanbul. The object (Istanbul and the Crimean bridge) is located in Europe and Asia. Therefore, on the one hand, each of them can be considered the largest in Europe. On the other hand, they may not be considered the largest. It seems to me, WP:NPOV says that the article should contain all of the significant views, not one.--Germash19 (talk) 20:13, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Couple of points in response:

• About the issue discussed above between H005 and Insider: it seems to me that the sources generally speak of the Crimean Bridge as a single entity, so I'd agree we should follow the sources and measure it by its full length, i.e. acknowledge that it is longer than VdG Bridge.
• About your sentence: "when considering the border ... along Kerch Strait" is still not proper English. A correct (though I guess still somewhat clumsy) version would be: "If one considers Kerch Strait to be the border between Europe and Asia..."; maybe a native speaker of English can come up with something more elegant.
• About the relevance of the statement: (a) Are there sources that consider Kerch Strait to be the continental border? Yes, apparently, you've brought sources that use that definition (although personally I'd be a bit surprised to find that view highly prevalent today). (b) Is the distinction between "a bridge that is in Europe" and "a bridge that is half in Europe and half in something that may be also Europe according to some definitions but not Europe according to others" an important enough and significant enough distinction, such that we would have to take it into account in the article on a different, totally unrelated bridge? I'd personally say no. Especially since, as everybody knows, the "border" between Europe and Asia is a completely arbitrary construct, without any meaningful geographic reality on the ground corresponding to it, and whether you draw it at that point or a couple hundred miles further southeast makes no real difference whatsoever. Yes, we should include all "significant views" as you say, but I just cannot see any "significant views" when there's not even a significant question to begin with. (c) Independently of whether we find the issue noteworthy, have reliable sources out there picked it up, making it "notable"? I can't see any. There are plenty of sources saying that the Crimean Bridge is now "the longest in Europe" (as you yourself acknowledged); have you seen comparable sources that actually propose the argument to the contrary, i.e. that say explicitly that we should continue to consider VdG Bridge the longest in Europe because Crimea Bridge isn't "in Europe"? Without such sources, your argument hangs in the air as WP:OR, just as much as H005's argument above did. Fut.Perf. ☼ 22:00, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• Guys, let me just add my twopence worth. Have you ever heard of Strahlenberg? Isn't he WP:RS any longer? According to him, Tuzla Island is in Asia, thus the Crimean Bridge is definitely an intercontinental one while VdG Brigde was, is and will be fully within Europe. BTW, this is confirmed by Britannica. --Volkov ^(?!) 20:14, 27 December 2018 (UTC)
  • • See the article Europe for a definition of the borders of Europe. Generally the Ural and the Greater Caucasus are considered the borders of the continent. So the Crimean Bridge is not transcontinental. The opinion of some 18th century Swedish geographer is not relevant for the situation today. --Wester (talk) 14:10, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

• Would you please provide us RS claiming that VdG Bridge is still considered to be the longest in Europe? Otherwise it is still WP:OR as Future Perfect at Sunrise said.--Александр Мотин (talk) 22:24, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

"Generally the Ural and the Greater Caucasus are considered the borders of the continent" - what "generally" means? From what I saw in Britannica, for example, it seems, that Tuzla Island and Taman Peninsula lie in Asia, so Crimean Bridge is transcontinental then. Bests, --Seryo93 (talk) 13:20, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

• "Crimean Bridge is transcontinental" — Provide RS with that exact quote , please.--Александр Мотин (talk) 18:24, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Embedded map error

The he red line on the embedded map does not not cover the bridge. Smeagol 17 (talk) 23:28, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Damage to the Crimean Bridge

It seems far too soon to be calling this bridge the longest in Europe is premature considering that the Crimean one hasn't been totally destroyed. If, as other articles indicate, the Crimean Bridge is "partly destroyed" then it is still the longest bridge. Calling it the longest fully functioning one makes more sense. Rambo Apocalypse (talk) 17:02, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

I have seen conflicting media reports on whether you can actually cross the CSB, which would seem to be the acid test of the matter. Nonetheless, until we have a definite answer one way or the other the current description of "longest intact bridge" seems fine. FWIW, my earlier edit in the middle of the earlier edits and reversions was a tag fix, not a content edit Espatie (talk) 23:37, 8 October 2022 (UTC)