Hyogo Prefecture, Japan Bridges: Akashi Kaikyo Bridge across the Akashi Strait (4)

November 2013 (34.616389 Degrees, 135.020278 Degrees) Akashi Kaikyo Bridge

At the northern end of Awaji Island is the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge with the longest main span of any bridge in the world. This bridge has 960m long side spans and a 1991m main span (1990m before the Kobe earthquake). We previously studied this bridge in July of 2009.

Below the deck is a catwalk that was designed to carry trucks. It took us ten minutes to walk from the anchorage to the first tower, so being able to drive under this bridge is a huge asset.

The elevator takes two minutes to get to the top of the 300m high tower. The elevator has to change position as it rolls along the tower legs. We were warned not to take photos using an iPhone because they're hard to hold onto and if you drop it, you could kill someone on the bridge deck below. Note only a single pair of suspender cables support each end of the floor beams instead of the four on the hefty Onaruto Bridge at the south end of Awaji Island.

We'll take a final look at this iconic bridge tomorrow.

Hyogo Prefecture, Japan Bridges: Akashi Kaikyo Bridge across the Akashi Strait (4) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.