The Millau Viaduct is a bridge structure across the Tarn River valley near the city of Millau in southern France. This viaduct is the last link of the A-75 highway, providing high-speed traffic between and Beziers through Clermont-Ferrand. The Millau Viaduct was inaugurated on December 14, 2004. At the time of its opening, it was considered the highest transport bridge in the world; the height of one of its supports reaches 341 meters - this is slightly higher and 40 meters lower than the Empire State Building in New York.
The authors of this project were the French engineer Michel Virlojo and the English architect Norman Foster. The viaduct was created under an agreement between the French government and the French design company "Eiffage", including the workshops of Gustav Eiffel. The bridge crosses the Tarn River valley at its lowest point. 
The Millau Viaduct holds three world records. The tallest pillar in the world: pillars P2 and P3 are 244.96 and 221.05 meters high, respectively. The world record for the height of the bridge support with a pylon, which reaches 343 meters. The highest road surface in the world: the height reaches 270 meters above the ground at its highest point. 
The Vuaduk belongs to the cable-stayed bridges and has a length of 2460 meters. The roadway of this bridge reaches 32 meters in width and has four lanes, two lanes in each direction, and two more reserve lanes. The viaduct stands on seven pillars, each of which is topped with pylons almost 89 meters high, on which 11 pairs of cables are attached. The pressure exerted on the longest cables is 900 tons. This project cost 400 million euros and is guaranteed for 120 years.
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The Tarn is a river in the south of France with a length of 380.6 kilometers. She doesn't have a very good reputation. The river is known in the country for its catastrophic floods. The maximum water level rose to 17 meters in 1930. There are three towns on it: Montauban, Albi and Millau, the most interesting section of the river. Here is an amazing landmark - the Millau Viaduct.
A cable-stayed bridge, the Millau Viaduct, spans the Tarn. This is the highest transport bridge in the world. It exceeds the height of the Eiffel Tower by 20 meters, that is, the maximum height of the support column reaches 343 meters. Upon completion of construction, the viaduct became the last link of the A75 highway connecting Paris and Beziers.
Before construction of the bridge began, traffic flowed along Route 9, thereby creating large traffic jams during the summer holiday period. Congestion was also due to the fact that many tourists traveling to Spain chose this particular section of the road.
Construction of the A75 highway began in 1975. It made it possible to relieve congestion in the river valley, and complemented the general road network of France connecting northern Europe with Spain. The Millau Viaduct was the final stage in completing the construction of the route.
It took 10 years and 3 years of construction to build such a bridge. This was due to harsh climatic and geological conditions. This region has quite strong winds and a specific topography of the Tarn River valley.
The Millau Viaduct has a total length of 2.46 kilometers. The width of the bridge is 32 meters. It stands on 7 supports, each of which in turn stands in 4 wells with a diameter of 5 meters and a depth of 15 meters. The roadway supports 7 pylons, each 88.92 meters high. 154 cables with triple protection against corrosion are attached to them. The canvas weighs 36,000 tons and has 8 spans. The total mass of concrete structures is 206,000 tons.
Construction of the bridge began on October 16, 2001. The authors of the project were French engineer Michel Virlogeau and English architect Noman Foster. Construction lasted 38 months. On December 14, 2004, French President Jacques Chirac inaugurated the viaduct. The total amount spent on construction was 400 million euros. The bridge is guaranteed for 120 years.
The Millau Viaduct is a road structure that fell within the scope of the 2001 reform on highway financing. Thus the bridge is a concession. The structure is owned by the French state, and the costs of construction and operation are borne by the concessionaire, while the revenue from the toll is received by the concessionaire. In 2010, the cost of travel through the viaduct was 6 euros for cars (7.7 euros in July and August), 3.9 euros for motorcycles, 21.3 euros and 28.9 euros for two-axle and three-axle trucks.
The bridge has three world records: the height of the pylon together with the support reaches 343 meters; the highest road surface in the world, 270 meters above the ground; the tallest pillars in the world with heights of 244.96 and 221.05 meters. Although many mistakenly argue and disagree with two of these records. The first is associated with a Chinese bridge in Hubei province, which surpassed the viaduct in height - 472 meters from the bridge to the bottom of the abyss. However, its supports are not located at the bottom of the gorge, but are located on plateaus and hills. While the Millau supports are located at the bottom of the gorge, making it the highest transport structure. The second disagreement concerns the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado, USA. The height from the ground to the roadway is 321 meters, while the viaduct is 270 meters. But the American Bridge is pedestrian, not transport.
November 2nd, 2013There is probably no such person who has not seen or heard about this unique and beautiful bridge, but I don’t have it in all over the world. To make it of some interest to you, let's approach the topic from the other side, let's look at the process of building this structure.
One of the main wonders of the industrial world of France can easily be attributed to the world-famous Millau Bridge, which is the holder of several records. Thanks to this gigantic bridge, stretching over a huge river valley called Tar, uninterrupted and high-speed travel is ensured from the capital of France, Paris, to the small town of Beziers. Many tourists who come to see this highest bridge in the world often ask the question: “Why was it necessary to build such an expensive and technically complex bridge that leads from Paris to the very small city of Beziers?” The thing is that it is in Beziers that a huge number of educational institutions, elite private schools and a retraining center for highly qualified specialists are located.
A huge number of Parisians, as well as residents from other large cities in France, who are attracted by the elitism of education in Beziers, come to study at these schools and colleges. In addition, the town of Beziers is located just 12 kilometers from the picturesque coast of the warm Mediterranean Sea, which, of course, in turn, also attracts tens of thousands of tourists from all over the globe every year.
The Millau Bridge, which can rightfully be considered the pinnacle of the mastery of engineers and architects, is popular among travelers as one of the most interesting attractions in France. Firstly, it offers a magnificent view of the Tar River valley, and secondly, it is one of the favorite objects for modern photographers. Photos of the Millau Bridge, which is almost two and a half kilometers long and 32 meters wide, made by the best and most respected photographers, adorn numerous office buildings and hotels not only in France, but throughout the Old World.
The bridge is a particularly fantastic sight when clouds gather underneath it: at this moment it seems as if the viaduct is hanging in the air and does not have a single support under it. The height of the bridge above the ground at its highest point is just over 270 meters. The Millau Viaduct was built with the sole purpose of relieving congestion on the national route number 9, which constantly experienced huge traffic jams during the season, and tourists traveling around France, as well as truck drivers, were forced to stand in traffic jams for hours.
As mentioned above, the bridge, which is part of the A75 highway, connects Paris and the city of Beziers, but it is quite often used by motorists traveling to the capital of the country from Spain and southern France. It is worth noting that travel through the viaduct, which “floats above the clouds,” is paid, which does not in any way affect its popularity among vehicle drivers and guests of the country who come to see one of the most amazing wonders of the industrial world.
The legendary Millau Viaduct, which every self-respecting bridge builder knows about and which is considered an example of technological progress for all mankind, was designed by Michel Virlajo and the brilliant architect Norman Foster. For those who are not familiar with the works of Norman Foster, it should be clarified that this talented English engineer, promoted to knights and barons by the Queen of Great Britain, not only recreated, but also introduced a number of new unique solutions to the Berlin Reichstag. It was thanks to his painstaking work and precisely calibrated calculations that the main symbol of the country was literally resurrected from the ashes in Germany. Naturally, Norman Foster's talent made the Millau Viaduct one of the modern wonders of the world.
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In addition to the British architect, a group called Eiffage, which includes the famous Eiffel workshop, which designed and built one of the main attractions of Paris, was involved in the work on the creation of the highest transport route in the world. By and large, the talent of Eiffel and the employees from his bureau created not only the “calling card” of Paris, but of the whole of France. In a well-coordinated tandem, the Eiffage group, Norman Foster and Michel Virlajo developed the Millau Bridge, which was inaugurated on December 14, 2004.
Already 2 days after the festive event, the first cars drove along the final link of the A75 highway. An interesting fact is that the first stone in the construction of the viaduct was laid on December 14, 2001, and the start of large-scale construction started on December 16, 2001. Apparently, the builders planned to coincide the opening date of the bridge with the start date of its construction.
Despite a group of the best architects and engineers, building the highest road bridge in the world was extremely difficult. By and large, there are two more bridges on our planet that are located above Millau above the surface of the earth: the Royal Gorge Bridge in the USA in Colorado (321 meters above the ground) and the Chinese bridge connecting the two banks of the Siduhe River. True, in the first case we are talking about a bridge that can only be crossed by pedestrians, and in the second, about a viaduct, the supports of which are located on a plateau and their height cannot be compared with the supports and pylons of Millau. It is for these reasons that the French Millau Bridge is considered the most complex in its design and the highest road bridge in the world.
Some supports of the A75 terminal link are located at the bottom of the gorge that separates the “red plateau” and the Lazarka plateau. To make the bridge completely safe, French engineers had to separately develop each support: almost all of them are of different diameters and clearly designed for a specific load. The width of the largest bridge support reaches almost 25 meters at its base. True, in the place where the support connects to the road surface, its diameter noticeably narrows.
The workers and architects who developed the project had to face a whole host of difficulties during construction work. Firstly, it was necessary to strengthen the places in the gorge where the supports were located, and secondly, it was necessary to spend quite a lot of time transporting individual parts of the canvas, its supports and pylons. Just imagine that the main support of the bridge consists of 16 sections, the weight of each of them is 2,300 (!) tons. Looking ahead a little, I would like to note that this is one of the records that belongs to the Millau Bridge.
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Naturally, there are no vehicles in the world that could deliver such massive parts of the Millau Bridge supports. For this reason, the architects decided to deliver parts of the supports in parts (if one can put it that way, of course). Each piece weighed about 60 tons. It is quite difficult to even imagine how much time it took the builders just to deliver 7 (!) supports to the bridge construction site, and this does not even take into account the fact that each support has a pylon just over 87 meters high, to which 11 pairs of high-strength cables are attached.
However, delivering construction materials to the site is not the only difficulty the engineers faced. The thing is that the Tar River valley has always been distinguished by a harsh climate: warmth, quickly giving way to piercing cold, sharp gusts of wind, steep cliffs - only a small part of what the builders of the majestic French viaduct had to overcome. There is official evidence that the development of the project and numerous studies lasted just over 10 (!) years. Work on the construction of the Millau Bridge was completed in such difficult conditions, one might even say, in record time: it took builders and other services 4 years to bring to life the plans of Norman Foster, Michel Virlajo and architects from the Eiffage group.
The road surface of the Millau Bridge, like its project itself, is innovative: in order to avoid deformation of expensive metal surfaces, which will be quite difficult to repair in the future, scientists had to invent an ultra-modern asphalt concrete formula. The metal sheets are quite strong, but their weight, relative to the entire gigantic structure, can be called insignificant (“only” 36,000 tons). The coating had to protect the canvas from deformation (be “soft”) and at the same time meet all the requirements of European standards (resist deformation, be used for a long time without repair and prevent so-called “shifts”). It is simply impossible for even the most cutting-edge technologies to solve this problem in a short time. During the construction of the bridge, the composition of the roadway was developed for almost three years. By the way, the asphalt concrete of the Millau Bridge is recognized as unique of its kind.
The Millau Bridge - harsh criticism
Despite the lengthy development of the plan, well-calibrated solutions and big names of architects, the construction of the viaduct initially aroused sharp criticism. By and large, in France any construction is subject to sharp criticism, just remember the Sacré-Coeur Basilica and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Opponents of the construction of the viaduct said that the bridge would be unreliable due to shifts at the bottom of the gorge; will never pay off; the use of such technologies on the A75 highway is unjustified; the bypass route will reduce the flow of tourists to the city of Millau. This is only a small part of the slogans that ardent opponents of the construction of a new viaduct addressed to the government. They were listened to and every negative call to the public was answered with an authoritative explanation. To be fair, we note that the opponents, which included influential associations, did not calm down and continued their protests almost the entire time the bridge was being built.
The Millau Bridge is a revolutionary solution
The construction of the most famous French viaduct, according to the most conservative estimates, took at least 400 million euros. Naturally, this money had to be returned, so travel on the viaduct was made to be paid: the point where you can pay for “a journey through the miracle of modern industry” is located near the small village of Saint-Germain. More than 20 million euros were spent on its construction alone. At the toll station there is a huge covered canopy, the construction of which took 53 giant beams. During the “season”, when the flow of cars along the viaduct sharply increases, additional lanes are used, of which, by the way, there are 16 at the “passport”. At this point there is also an electronic system that allows you to track the number of cars on the bridge and their tonnage. By the way, the Eiffage concession will last only 78 years, which is exactly how long the state allocated to the group to cover its expenses.
Most likely, Eiffage will not even be able to recover all the funds spent on construction. However, such unfavorable financial forecasts are viewed with a grain of irony within the group. Firstly, Eiffage is far from poor, and secondly, the Millau Bridge served as further proof of the genius of its specialists. By the way, talk that the companies that built the bridge will lose money is nothing more than fiction. Yes, the bridge was not built at state expense, but after 78 years, if the bridge does not bring profit to the group, France will be obliged to pay the losses. But if “Eiffage manages to earn 375 million euros on the Millau Viaduct earlier than in 78 years, the bridge will become the property of the country free of charge. The concession period will last, as mentioned above, 78 years (until 2045), but the group of companies gave a guarantee for their majestic bridge for 120 years.
Traveling along the four-lane highway of the Millau Viaduct does not cost exorbitant sums, as many might think.. Driving a passenger car along the viaduct, the height of the main support of which is higher than the Eiffel Tower itself (!) and only slightly lower than the Empire State Building, will cost only 6 euros (in the “season” 7.70 euros). But for two-axle cargo vehicles, the fare will be 21.30 euros; for three-axles - almost 29 euros. Even motorcyclists and people traveling on the viaduct on scooters have to pay: the cost of traveling along the Millau Bridge will cost them 3 euros and 90 euro cents.
The Millau Viaduct Bridge comprises an eight-span steel roadway supported by eight steel pillars. The weight of the roadway is 36,000 tons, width - 32 meters, length - 2460 meters, depth - 4.2 meters. The length of all six central spans is 342 meters, and the two outer ones are 204 meters long each. The road has a slight gradient of 3%, descends from the south side to the north, its curvature with a radius of 20 km in order to give drivers a better view. Traffic flows in two lanes in all directions. The height of the columns ranges from 77 to 246 m, the diameter of one of the longest columns is 24.5 meters at the base, and at the road surface - eleven meters. Each base has sixteen sections. One section weighs 2 thousand 230 tons. The sections were assembled on site from individual parts. Each individual part of the section has a mass of sixty tons, seventeen meters in length and four meters in width. Each support must support pylons having a height of 97 meters. First, the columns were assembled, which were together with temporary supports, then parts of the canvas were moved along the supports using jacks. The jacks were controlled from satellites. The canvases moved six hundred millimeters in four minutes.
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Being part of the A75 high-speed highway, this structure serves as the shortest route from Paris through the city of Clermont-Ferrand to the Mediterranean Sea, in particular to the city of Beziers, which is located in the south of the state, 15 km from the sea coast. Before the construction of the Viaduct, traffic between southern France, Spain and the rest of the French cities through the Tarn River valley had some problems - during the holiday season the section suffered from congestion and was filled with traffic jams for many kilometers. Over time, the appearance of a bridge over the valley became the only way out of the situation, which would shorten the journey by 100 km, reduce the load during the holiday season, and also protect the city of Millau from pollution caused by continuous traffic jams.
The first ideas regarding the construction of the Viaduct began to be discussed in 1987. In July 1996, the jury decided to build a cable-stayed bridge with several spans, as proposed by a consortium consisting of the companies of the French engineer Michel Virlogeaux and Norman Foster, an architect from England. The project was implemented by the French design company Eiffage, which includes the workshops of Gustav Eiffel, who built the famous Eiffel Tower. By 2001, a large-scale project had already been formed and its implementation began. Huge supports were initially erected, along with temporary intermediate strips, to make installation a little easier. Engineers connected the roadway from two sides at once - attaching sections one after another using specialized equipment.
The bridge structure took almost three years to build - its official opening took place on December 14, 2004.
The engineering wonder of the world is a roadway 2,460 meters long and 32 meters wide, standing on seven concrete supports, one of which is almost 20 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower. In total, the bridge structure has eight spans, the two outer ones are 204 meters long, and the six central ones are 342 meters long. The bridge is made in the shape of a semicircle - its radius is 20 kilometers. The total weight of the Viaduct's steel deck is 36,000 tons. A special screen has been installed on both sides of the highway to protect motorists and the Millau Viaduct from strong gusts of wind.
The condition of the French record-breaking bridge is regularly recorded using a variety of sensors that measure tension, temperature, pressure, acceleration, etc. Initially, the speed limit on the Millau Viaduct highway was limited to the standard limits - up to 130 km/h, but it was soon reduced to 90 km/h in order to reduce the likelihood of accidents, because... Drivers often slowed down to enjoy the surrounding scenery.
The cost of construction of the highest transport bridge in the world was approximately 400 million euros.
The main competitor of the Millau Viaduct for the title of the tallest bridge on the planet is the Royal Bridge, located in the Colorado Gorge in the USA, which lies over the Arkansas River and has pedestrian status. Its height is 321 meters, making it the highest pedestrian bridge in the world.
Engineers suggest that the minimum service life of the Viaduct is 120 years. Every year, inspection work is carried out to examine the fastening of bolts, cables, and the condition of appearance so that the bridge is always in excellent condition.
The cost of driving a passenger car on the Millau Bridge highway in the summer (July-August) is 9.10 euros, the rest of the year - 7.30 euros, for a truck - 33.40 euros all year round, for motorcycles - 4.60 euros all year round year.
One of the main wonders of the industrial world of France can easily be attributed to the world-famous Millau Bridge, which is the holder of several records. Thanks to this gigantic bridge, stretching over a huge river valley called Tar, uninterrupted and high-speed travel from Paris to the small town of Beziers is ensured.
Many tourists who come to see this highest bridge in the world often ask the question: “Why was it necessary to build such an expensive and technically complex bridge that leads from Paris to the very small city of Beziers? The thing is that it is in Beziers that a huge number of educational institutions, elite private schools and a retraining center for highly qualified specialists are located.
A huge number of Parisians, as well as residents from other large cities in France, who are attracted by the elitism of education in Beziers, come to study at these schools and colleges. In addition, the town of Beziers is located just 12 kilometers from the picturesque coast of the warm Mediterranean Sea, which, of course, in turn, also attracts tens of thousands of tourists from all over the globe every year.
The Millau Bridge, which can rightfully be considered the pinnacle of the mastery of engineers and architects, is popular among travelers as one of the most interesting attractions in France. Firstly, it offers a magnificent view of the Tar River valley, and secondly, it is one of the favorite objects for modern photographers. Photos of the Millau Bridge, which is almost two and a half kilometers long and 32 meters wide, made by the best and most respected photographers, adorn numerous office buildings and hotels not only in France, but throughout the Old World.
The bridge is a particularly fantastic sight when clouds gather underneath it: at this moment it seems as if the viaduct is hanging in the air and does not have a single support under it. The height of the bridge above the ground at its highest point is just over 270 meters. The Millau Viaduct was built with the sole purpose of relieving congestion on the national route number 9, which constantly experienced huge traffic jams during the season, and tourists traveling around France, as well as truck drivers, were forced to stand in traffic jams for hours.
As mentioned above, the bridge, which is part of the A75 highway, connects Paris and the city of Beziers, but it is quite often used by motorists traveling to the capital of the country from Spain and southern France. It is worth noting that travel through the viaduct, which “floats above the clouds,” is paid, which does not in any way affect its popularity among vehicle drivers and guests of the country who come to see one of the most amazing wonders of the industrial world.
The legendary Millau Viaduct, which every self-respecting bridge builder knows about and which is considered an example of technological progress for all mankind, was designed by Michel Virlajo and the brilliant architect Norman Foster. For those who are not familiar with the works of Norman Foster, it should be clarified that this talented English engineer, promoted to knights and barons by the Queen of Great Britain, not only recreated, but also introduced a number of new unique solutions to the Berlin Reichstag. It was thanks to his painstaking work and precisely calibrated calculations that the main symbol of the country was literally resurrected from the ashes in Germany. Naturally, Norman Foster's talent made the Millau Viaduct one of the modern wonders of the world.
In addition to the British architect, a group called Eiffage, which includes the famous Eiffel workshop, which designed and built one of the main attractions of Paris, was involved in the work on the creation of the highest transport route in the world. By and large, the talent of Eiffel and the employees from his bureau created not only the “calling card” of Paris, but of the whole of France. In a well-coordinated tandem, the Eiffage group, Norman Foster and Michel Virlajo developed the Millau Bridge, which was inaugurated on December 14, 2004.
Already 2 days after the festive event, the first cars drove along the final link of the A75 highway. An interesting fact is that the first stone in the construction of the viaduct was laid on December 14, 2001, and the start of large-scale construction started on December 16, 2001. Apparently, the builders planned to coincide the opening date of the bridge with the start date of its construction.
Despite a group of the best architects and engineers, building the highest road bridge in the world was extremely difficult. By and large, there are two more bridges on our planet that are located above Millau above the surface of the earth: the Royal Gorge Bridge in the USA in Colorado (321 meters above the ground) and the Chinese bridge connecting the two banks of the Siduhe River.
True, in the first case we are talking about a bridge that can only be crossed by pedestrians, and in the second, about a viaduct, the supports of which are located on a plateau and their height cannot be compared with the supports and pylons of Millau. It is for these reasons that the French Millau Bridge is considered the most complex in its design and the highest road bridge in the world.
Some supports of the A75 terminal link are located at the bottom of the gorge that separates the “red plateau” and the Lazarka plateau. To make the bridge completely safe, French engineers had to separately develop each support: almost all of them are of different diameters and clearly designed for a specific load. The width of the largest bridge support reaches almost 25 meters at its base. True, in the place where the support connects to the road surface, its diameter noticeably narrows.
The workers and architects who developed the project had to face a whole host of difficulties during construction work. Firstly, it was necessary to strengthen the places in the gorge where the supports were located, and secondly, it was necessary to spend quite a lot of time transporting individual parts of the canvas, its supports and pylons. Just imagine that the main support of the bridge consists of 16 sections, each weighing 2,300 tons. Looking ahead a little, I would like to note that this is one of the records that belongs to the Millau Bridge.
Naturally, there are no vehicles in the world that could deliver such massive parts of the Millau Bridge supports. For this reason, the architects decided to deliver parts of the supports in parts (if one can put it that way, of course). Each piece weighed about 60 tons. It is quite difficult to even imagine how much time it took the builders just to deliver 7 supports to the bridge construction site, and this does not even take into account the fact that each support has a pylon just over 87 meters high, to which 11 pairs of high-strength cables are attached.
However, delivering construction materials to the site is not the only difficulty the engineers faced. The thing is that the Tar River valley has always been distinguished by a harsh climate: warmth, quickly giving way to piercing cold, sharp gusts of wind, steep cliffs - only a small part of what the builders of the majestic French viaduct had to overcome. There is official evidence that the development of the project and numerous studies lasted just over 10 years.
The road surface of the Millau Bridge, like its project itself, is unique; in order to avoid deformation of expensive metal surfaces, which will be quite difficult to repair in the future, scientists had to invent an ultra-modern asphalt concrete formula. The metal sheets are quite strong, but their weight, relative to the entire gigantic structure, can be called insignificant (“only” 36,000 tons).
The coating had to protect the canvas from deformation (be “soft”) and at the same time meet all the requirements of European standards (resist deformation, be used for a long time without repair and prevent so-called “shifts”). It is simply impossible for even the most cutting-edge technologies to solve this problem in a short time. During the construction of the bridge, the composition of the roadway was developed for almost three years. By the way, the asphalt concrete of the Millau Bridge is recognized as unique of its kind.
The Millau Bridge - harsh criticism
Despite the lengthy development of the plan, well-calibrated solutions and big names of architects, the construction of the viaduct initially aroused sharp criticism. By and large, in France any construction is subject to sharp criticism, just remember the Sacré-Coeur Basilica and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Opponents of the construction of the viaduct said that the bridge would be unreliable due to shifts at the bottom of the gorge; will never pay off; the use of such technologies on the A75 highway is unjustified; the bypass route will reduce the flow of tourists to the city of Millau.
This is only a small part of the slogans that ardent opponents of the construction of a new viaduct addressed to the government. They were listened to and every negative call to the public was answered with an authoritative explanation. To be fair, we note that the opponents, which included influential associations, did not calm down and continued their protests almost the entire time the bridge was being built.
The Millau Bridge is a revolutionary solution
The construction of the most famous French viaduct, according to the most conservative estimates, took at least 400 million euros. Naturally, this money had to be returned, so travel on the viaduct was made to be paid: the point where you can pay for “a journey through the miracle of modern industry” is located near the small village of Saint-Germain. More than 20 million euros were spent on its construction alone.
At the toll station there is a huge covered canopy, the construction of which took 53 giant beams. During the “season”, when the flow of cars along the viaduct sharply increases, additional lanes are used, of which, by the way, there are 16 at the “passport”. At this point there is also an electronic system that allows you to track the number of cars on the bridge and their tonnage. By the way, the Eiffage concession will last only 78 years, which is exactly how long the state allocated to the group to cover its expenses.
Most likely, Eiffage will not even be able to recover all the funds spent on construction. However, such unfavorable financial forecasts are viewed with a grain of irony within the group. Firstly, Eiffage is far from poor, and secondly, the Millau Bridge served as further proof of the genius of its specialists. By the way, talk that the companies that built the bridge will lose money is nothing more than fiction.
Yes, the bridge was not built at state expense, but after 78 years, if the bridge does not bring profit to the group, France will be obliged to pay the losses. But if “Eiffage manages to earn 375 million euros on the Millau Viaduct earlier than in 78 years, the bridge will become the property of the country free of charge. The concession period will last, as mentioned above, 78 years (until 2045), but the group of companies gave a guarantee for their majestic bridge for 120 years.
Driving along the four-lane highway of the Millau Viaduct does not cost exorbitant amounts, as many might think. Driving a passenger car along the viaduct, the height of the main support of which is higher than the Eiffel Tower itself and only slightly lower than the Empire State Building, will cost only 6 euros (in the “season” 7.70 euros). But for two-axle cargo vehicles, the fare will be 21.30 euros; for three-axles - almost 29 euros. Even motorcyclists and people traveling on the viaduct on scooters have to pay: the cost of traveling along the Millau Bridge will cost them 3 euros and 90 euro cents.
The Millau Viaduct Bridge comprises an eight-span steel roadway supported by eight steel pillars. The weight of the roadway is 36,000 tons, width - 32 meters, length - 2460 meters, depth - 4.2 meters. The length of all six central spans is 342 meters, and the two outer ones are 204 meters long each. The road has a slight gradient of 3%, descends from the south side to the north, its curvature with a radius of 20 km in order to give drivers a better view. Traffic flows in two lanes in all directions.
The height of the columns ranges from 77 to 246 m, the diameter of one of the longest columns is 24.5 meters at the base, and at the road surface - eleven meters. Each base has sixteen sections. One section weighs 2 thousand 230 tons. The sections were assembled on site from individual parts. Each individual part of the section has a mass of sixty tons, seventeen meters in length and four meters in width. Each support must support pylons having a height of 97 meters. First, the columns were assembled, which were together with temporary supports, then parts of the canvas were moved along the supports using jacks. The jacks were controlled from satellites.
