3097: Bridge Types

Bridge Types

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Title text: Pontoon bridges are just linear open-sided waterbeds.

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Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: This page was recently created by a RAINBOW BRIDGE. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This comic shows, in a four-by-four grid of images, a series of bridge types. The first two rows of images are of authentic bridge types, whereas those in the last two rows are progressively more absurd. At first glance, the joke lies in the progression of bridge types from simple to realistically complex to totally bogus.

Label	Status	Type	Notes
Plank	Real	Beam bridge	Straightforward pieces of solid material (in this case, made of solid wood, but there are other materials) are the most basic form of bridge. The plank needs to be strong enough to not buckle in the center, and retaining your balance is a danger depending on the width of the bridge, but the basic design has a simple elegance that can't be argued with.
Rope	Real	Simple suspension bridge	TBA
Truss	Real	Truss bridge	A truss is a basic type of bridge composed of triangles. The deck is the bottom side of the triangles.
Trestle	Real	Trestle bridge	TBA
Arch	Real	Arch bridge	Arches are one of the oldest kinds of bridges. They can be made out of rock or metal. Each span comes out from a pillar or abutment with each pillar joined by arches, as the name suggests
Suspended Arch	Real	Tied-arch bridge	Tied arch bridges use the same concept of arch bridges, but the arch is instead positioned overhead. The deck is supported by cables or rods dropping down from the top.
Draw	Real	Drawbridge	Drawbridges are used to allow ships to pass through obstacles like bridges. They use a cable to pull up one or both sides of the bridge to create enough height clearance for vessels to pass through.
Suspension	Real	Suspension bridge	A suspension bridge suspends its deck with cables or rods from a cable linked to a pillar and a point a certain distance from each pillar
Filler	Real (Absurd Name)	Causeway	Searches on "filler bridge" call up various forms of rhinoplasty, or "nose jobs". The pun may or may not be intentional.
Budget Overrun	Real (Absurd Name)	Cable-stayed bridge	Specifically, the pictured bridge is a cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge, similar in appearance to the Samuel Beckett Bridge. Many bridges in this category suffer severe cost overruns. Randall may be drawing upon his local knowledge of the Zakim Bridge in downtown Boston's Big Dig, also strongly associated with cost overruns.
Jump	Not Real	N/A	A "bridge" that looks like it belongs in a skatepark. Iconically featured in The Dukes of Hazzard TV show.
Halfhearted	Real	Moses bridge	Such a bridge exists at the Fort de Roovere in Halsteren, Netherlands.
Waterbed	Real (Absurd Name)	Pontoon bridge	Commonly used for temporary structures, but permanent installations also exist, e.g. in Dubai or Norway.
L'Engle	Not Real	Tesseract AWIT	References A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle. Characters cross great distances by "tessering", moving via a tesseract through a higher dimension which essentially brings the two ends of the journey together from the perspective of the traveler. The image shows the two ends of the gap being brought together, with the gap apparently crumpled in between them.
Fun	Not Real		It is a loop-de-loop, possible allusion to 2935: Ocean Loop.
Repurposed Elevator	Real	Horizontal elevator / People mover	There are various implementations of such designs, the best-known one is probably the Schmid Peoplemover.

The title text humorously insists that a real pontoon bridge is a concatenation of fictitious "waterbed bridges", but without sides so that water flows in one side and out the other. It raises the idea that (arguable) real-world examples may yet exist for the later bridge types, emphasizing the absurdity of those bridges.

Transcript

This is one of 27 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Bridge Types

[A 4x4 matrix of 16 ways to cross the same rectangular hole in the ground]

Plank [shows a plank laid over the hole]

Rope [shows a rope bridge with rope guardrail]

Truss [shows a truss bridge with a triangular truss above the bridge deck]

Trestle [shows a trestle bridge]

Arch [shows stone arches supporting a straight deck]

Suspended Arch [shows a single arch, with the bridge deck suspended from it]

Draw [shows a truss bridge, with one half opened like an unrealistic draw bridge]

Suspension [shows the bridge deck suspended from a cable strung between two pillars and the shores]

Filler [shows the hole filled with dirt and stones]

Budget Overrun [shows a bridge deck suspended by cables from an artistically shaped pillar]

Jump [shows two ramps at the edges of the hole, and a skateboarder jumping across the hole]

Halfhearted [shows a ramp at each side of the hole that leads down to the bottom]

Waterbed [shows the hole filled with water, two fish and an octopus, a wobbly covering, and two stick figures crossing]

L'Engle [shows the hole warped such that the opposite shores meet]

Fun [shows a loop-de-loop rollercoaster bridging the hole, and a skateboarder using it to get across]

Repurposed Elevator [shows an elevator tower, rotated sideways as a whole, laid across the hole. 2 stick figures using the elevator are also rotated.]

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Discussion

For budget overrun, see olympic stadium of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 162.158.126.202 01:23, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Very disappointed there's no bridge card game reference, but I guess that's not one of Randall's types of nerdiness :( 172.71.254.203 01:45, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I would like to note that cable stayed bridges, budget overrun here, are much cheaper than equivalent suspension bridges. It because they use less materials and can be built faster meaning less labor. 172.69.58.51 01:50, 3 June 2025‎

Tru dat in general, but I think that this is a reference to the Zakim Bridge in downtown Boston, part of the "Big Dig" project that became notorious for its budget overruns and related shenanigans. Given that Randall M. lives in Boston, that makes this panel something of an inside joke. 172.71.147.224 03:15, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The St. Louis Arch is a repurposed-elevator-suspended-arch-but-without-the-base-and-wires bridge if you squint hard enough. The elevator is also fun. 172.69.67.214 01:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Nothing about a a bridge circuit or these many other bridges either. Sigh. 172.69.67.214 01:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

And where, oh where, are Lloyd, Beau, Jeff, and Jordan? 162.158.41.84 03:19, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The L'Engle is a take off on a Wrinkle in time? But this one is in space? -- 162.158.91.124 (talk) 02:26, 3 June 2025‎ (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

There's some space-warping in L'Engle's books. 162.158.174.63 02:44, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The "budget overrun" bridge doesn't really look like the Zakim bridge to me. It looks a lot like the Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin. I don't know what the budget of that bridge was, but according to wiki it cost 60 million euros, which sounds like a lot given that the bridge isn't all that long or wide. 172.70.126.87 03:24, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps if Randall M. drew too close a likeness to the Zakim Bridge, he feared a visit from officials with lawyers and/or cement shoes. ("Only the paranoid survive ...") It seems, from a quick tour of the Internet, that words like "grandiose and overblown" are easily applied to cable-stayed bridge designs/aesthetics. I wasn't easily able to find information on budget overruns for these bridges, and see the commentator above who pointed out the lower costs overall of cable-stayed vs suspension bridges. But as a former resident of Greater Boston, I can report the pervasiveness of the Big Dig and its challenges, budgetary and otherwise, in local life and lore. 172.68.22.108 04:32, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The cable-stayed bridge is the current darling of artists that accidentally went to engineering school, who are notorious for running over budget and behind schedule. RegularSizedGuy (talk) 04:40, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I can see the suggestion of the Beckett bridge, but in my eyes the obvious template would be Rotterdam's Erasmus Bridge Nachtvogel (talk) 06:00, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Could "budget overrun" be a reference to Polybridge and other similar "Bridge Architect" games where player has a very limited budget for building materials? 37.47.135.196 02:58, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

I think the repurposed elevator should be considered a dig at Elon Musks The Boring Company, even though they tunnel rather then bridge 162.158.182.138 04:37, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Added a bunch of explanations 162.158.8.132 07:31, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The Repurposed Elevator is actually a real thing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmid_Peoplemover It's not as strange as you think. It's a space effective, but too expensive solution to the problem of not making cramped railway crossroads more cramped. 162.158.172.112 07:39, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I've added it to the list. Feel free to do such changes yourself if you know something that can contribute. --172.71.183.12 08:07, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The Vizcaya Bridge in Bilbao (Spain) is a good example of elevator bridge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizcaya_Bridge 90.173.49.42 15:23, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

That's a Transporter Bridge, which (as someone mentioned below) is a separate thing that's surprisingly not really covered in the comic. It bears some operational similarities to a sideways-elevator, arguably more so than the Peoplemover that combines directions of travel rather than just changes that travel, but the hanging (suspension) element from the (truss-)supported carriage adds in other things that surely could have attracted parody (as a 'real type of bridge, possibly abnormally named) if it was within Randall's radar. 82.132.235.191 17:51, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

For the "Google Earth Bridge" remark, this article might work as a citation. Conster (talk) 07:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Do we have to single out Google for this? Apple maps did a fantastic job of melting bridges as well... :D 162.158.42.38 19:47, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

There seem to be stick figures on each bridge, except for the Arch. Is that on phone? Maybe he's saying nobody uses arch (Linux)? Or does anyone has any other idea as to why? 172.69.128.184 08:21, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

That was my though exactly. As an arch user (btw) i find this very discriminatory. 2403:5819:A90B:0:A0E9:9DE2:636D:4D7D 08:49, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Is there a reason for the trestle bridge to have a raised deck? They were iconically used for railways, where that would not work. --162.158.110.59 09:56, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The jump in particular feels a lot like polybridge and I love it 172.71.167.160 11:27, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Alas, no love (or even any acknowlegement) for the Transporter bridge, it seams... 172.69.79.165 16:11, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I live in Montreal, and the "budget overrun" immediately made me think of our Olympic Stadium, which we affectionately call "The Big Owe". 162.158.126.10 20:38, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The closest thing to a "repurposed elevator" I know is a bus in Tirana in Albania, which accidentaly crashed off the road and over a river, and served as ab impromptu bridge for a while.

Suspended arch - tied-arch vs. through arch: The "suspended arch" bridge may or may not be a tied-arch bridge. Something has to stop the ends of the arch sliding outwards when there's a large load in the middle, but you can't tell what that something is from the image.

If that something is the bridge deck, being connected to the ends of the arch and under tension, than it's a tied-arch bridge (the deck ties the ends of the arch together). If that something is the arch foundations, and the deck is not under tension, then it's not a tied-arch bridge; it's just a simple through-arch bridge.

For more info on (real) bridges, Practical Engineering --DW 162.158.187.69 13:24, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

'Drawbridge' to me means a defensive bridge that crosses the moat of a castle, and can be pulled up when defending it. See, eg., my favourite castle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodiam_Castle 172.69.224.115 15:05, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. What they have there is a lift bridge. Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 15:55, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Well, as an abbreviated version of the vertical-lift bridge, I might quibble about even that descriptor. (But "bascule" became current, in-description, for which the main complaint might be only that it's a less known and more obscure name.) 82.132.234.190 13:18, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

This is great timing, I was just today made aware of what I initially assumed to be a poor translation of "draw bridge", before realizing it was indeed its own distinct thing! It was Leonardo Da Vinci's Pivot Bridge PotatoGod (talk) 19:04, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

I think "budget overrun" is a reference to w: Santiago Calatrava a starchitect who has a singular style and whose stuff is known for ridiculously high costs 2001:a62:1448:d002:f1c9:dbd4:e909:c67e (talk) 10:59, 27 July 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

(The link doesn't work, how you wrote it. I know how you should have written it, that way, but can I introduce you to using the template {{w}}? That would display as Santiago Calatrava and is the dominant local method of wikipedia linking.)

I'm not sure that Santiago Calatrava is particularly unique (or outstandingly notable, in Randall's world) to make it an actual reference specifically to them. However, still nice to know about something new and random (yet relevant, of course), so I think we should thank you for your information in a more general way. 92.23.2.228 19:54, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

I think that "Repurposed Elevator" is a reference to Wellington Station on the Boston Subway, where there was a vertical people mover ("elevator") over the yard but was later repurposed into a walkway (bridge). 173.48.115.181 11:09, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Added--FaviFake (talk) 12:55, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Though, really, it's the exact opposite of this illustrated case. But I don't feel like going into that in a practical edit. 82.132.246.173 13:06, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

The page will remain incorrect then. --FaviFake (talk) 16:42, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

That's up to everyone else, once they realise that effectively one's a case of adding an elevator to an unbridged gap to create an 'elevator bridge', of sorts, and the other was a case of removing an elevator from an actual elevator bridge to leave just a bridge. But I don't want to remove the information, or greatly expand it to detail its oppositeness and counter-context. And I don't say that there's no inspirational link (is Randall sufficiently familiar with that location?), just that it's not so obvious a straight reference. 82.132.236.41 01:13, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

"Filler" seems to be a pun for 3D-printing enthusiasts. That's what it feels like to me. 80.187.81.79 06:10, 9 October 2025 (UTC) BUFU
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