A bridge in China suspended over a 1,854-foot gorge became the “world’s highest” when it opened to automotive traffic Thursday, reports said.<\/p>\n
The Beipanjiang Bridge took three years to build, cost more than $146.7 million dollars, and stretches to be 4,396 feet long. Its four-lane roadway sits nearly two thousand feet over the Beipan River, which it’s named after, to connect the Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in southwest China, People’s Daily Online<\/em> reported. It surpassed the 1,837-foot-tall Sidu River Bridge for its world record title.<\/p>\n We know what you’re thinking: $146.7 million is cheap! And it is! After all, when the Golden Gate Bridge spanning San Francisco Bay was built in 1933 it cost $1.5 billion (in adjusted dollars), and the brand new New Bay Bridge, on the other side of town, ended up costing a whopping $6.7 billion when it was finished in 2013.<\/p>\n The Beipanjiang Bridge is part of the 2,115 mile Hangrui Highway which connects Hangzhou to the China-Myanmar border crossing in Ruili. Construction actually finished on the bridge September 10, but the massive sky-scraping overpass only opened to vehicular traffic today.<\/p>\n Though the Beipanjiang Bridge might be the highest bridge in the world, the world’s tallest<\/em> bridge is still the Millau viaduct in France which tops out at 1,125 feet, the BBC<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n