Hello hash,
In some ways the story reminds me of that of James J. Hill and the Great Northern Railroad.
Respectfully,
O.A.

Try this link:

https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/index.php/...

Thanks for that link. It has some really incredible footage of how they accomplished this all without ever affecting traffic in the shipping lane under the bridge.

That's really sad. Might be viewable via Tor using a Canadian exit node.

Here's an article with a little bit of the story:

http://www.insidevancouver.ca/2012/06/12...

The other really cool thing is the immense profitability of the bridge, and that it transformed West Vancouver from countryside into a part of the city with some of the highest real estate values (average house price in West Van now is $2M).

Even if they did, which is totally unsubstantiated, it's a private, non-government, free market institution. So the government still did not have anything to do with it. In fact, as I mentioned, the government's main involvement was to block the approval of the bridge (on false pretexts basically to protect the investments of other real estate developers) for longer than it took to construct it.

We can thank them for that if you like.

Uhm, in the '30s they didn't get steel from China. It was likely American, which was the best mass produced steel in the world up to that time and beyond (since the Civil War, at least). By the time this bridge was built American steel was in buildings and bridges all over the world. The building of the Eiffel Tower put the world on notice that when it came to quality steel production, American s%#& didn't stink!

Thanks for the link, DaveM49. Nice video. When I click on the video in the original article posted above all I get is the message: "This video can only be viewed in Canada" and the video will not run.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYNA0DlNN... YouTube has some footage of the bridge being built, of which this appears to be the best. I was not able to find the Canadian documentary or anything about the intrigue behind the construction.

The section of AS describing the John Galt Line contains one of my all-time favorite (presumably deliberately) stupid remarks: "How is a 3000 ton bridge supposed to support a 12000 ton train?" (I think I have the numbers right). If the carrying capacity of a bridge was limited by its weight, no bridge would be able to support any weight other than its own!

Video "Can Only Be Viewed in Canada!" Pity.

True. I was thinking more of the aesthetics of it. It's actually very Howard Roark too.

New road construction a few miles from my home. Part was done by the city using a private contractor, part done by the county. Without going into the politics and just casual observation, here's what I saw. The private contractor's equipment wasn't new but clean and shiny. No messes, the working area was always clean. Completed in 6 weeks with minimum traffic diversions. The county's equipment always looked dirty, rusty and ready for retirement. The roads were muddy, the traffic was a mess. Weeks went by with no progress. Finished in around 6 months. It was classic government VS private construction. I wish I was able to memorialize it with photography, but I probably would have gotten flattened by traffic. Parody of Ronaldo Magnus: "I'm from the government, I'm here to screw it up."

It took longer for the bureau-rats to approve the bridge than to actually build it!

Exactly! We can't do that, right? Clearly the video in the original post was of a government-built bridge and some silly individual is tying to take credit for what our benevolent governments have actually done on our behalf.

Watch the documentary. They went way beyond any "government-imposed standards" for steel and everything else. For profit.

Although.. Charlize Theron as Dagny would have been cool too :)

Yeah, if it wasn't for the government, who would build the roads (and bridges)?

I wonder about that too.

Interestingly, Michael Burns of Lions Gate Entertainment (which is named after the bridge) had at one time planned to fund and distribute an Atlas Shrugged movie, with potential cast members including Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts, and Anne Hathaway.

(Luckily we got Taylor Schilling, Samantha Mathis and Laura Regan instead :-)

Lions Gate Entertainment also produced Mad Men, which has a great Atlas Shrugged reference in it, as well as Orange Is The New Black, starring Taylor Schilling.

"...you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Just repeat after me: nothing is possible without our benevolent government, nothing is possible without our benevolent government, nothing is possible without our benevolent government...

Love the bridge photo. I can't help but wonder if Ayn had seen it or at least heard about it.

It reminds me, actually, of the Taggart Bridge across the Mississippi--and the back-story of how Nathaniel Taggart got it done, even when it meant picking up the tools himself.

Tried to view video off link and it said it can only be viewed in Canada. Will look at other sources including book link.