Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The world's highest road bridge, standing taller than the Eiffel Tower, was today inaugurated in southern France by the country's president, Jacques Chirac.
The Millau Viaduct carries a highway from Paris to the Mediterranean some 270 meters (886 feet) above the Tarn River. Stretching for 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles), the bridge took three years to build at a cost of 320 million euros ($426 million). Motorists will be charged 4.9 euros to drive over it.
``This structure creates a dramatic silhouette, and crucially it makes the minimum intervention in the landscape,'' architect Norman Foster said on his company's Web site. ``It is delicate, transparent, and uses the minimum material.''
The bridge was built by Eiffage SA, France's third-largest construction company … The company was formed when Fougerolle, which traced its history to the 1840s, bought Societe Auxiliaire d'Entreprise in 1992. Fougerolle had worked on projects including the St. Gothard tunnel through the Alps, completed in 1882, part of the Paris Metro and France's Maginot line defenses against Germany prior to World War II, according to Hoover's Inc.
Ironically, the Maginot line also proved to be delicate and transparent in the sense that the German Army never saw it as they motored through Belgium and around the end of the line. German tourists are reportedly driving around the new bridge to arrive at the beaches while laughing and making insulting hand gestures at the French.
The bridge, which can only be reached by a 500-foor tall staircase, has handled remarkably little vehicular traffic since it opened. Civil Engineers blame the architect’s decision to integrate the bridge into its environment by severing it from the actual roadway, but fellow architects and design mavens insist that the bridge is merely awaiting the maturation of the driving tastes of the public – and the development of the funicular car.
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