Coming Next Week - Measured in Metric Season 2

04/10/20 • 1 min

Coming next Friday April 17: Measured in Metric Season 2!

Beginning next week we'll be taking you on a tour around the world while everyone is stuck at home, starting with Australia's Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Check out our instagram @MeasuredInMetric to find out more.

Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

Coming next Friday April 17: Measured in Metric Season 2!

Beginning next week we'll be taking you on a tour around the world while everyone is stuck at home, starting with Australia's Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Check out our instagram @MeasuredInMetric to find out more.

Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

Previous Episode

S01|12 - The Brooklyn Bridge [Part 2]

In our Season 1 finale we conclude our two part episode on the Brooklyn Bridge, and later in the episode we speak with Unit Managing Director with Mott McDonald, Chris Mealing, about his history as a bridge Engineer and how he sleeps at night!

In part one of our Brooklyn Bridge double feature we discussed some people who were a little crazy, and a little cool, but mostly both: The Roeblings. This family of Engineers were largely responsible for the design and construction of the bridge, which would be the first to span the East River. In part one we extensively discussed John and his son Washington Roebling, but only just touched on our first female Engineer of the podcast: Washington’s wife Emily Roebling.

Despite the fact that Emily was not officially recognized as an Engineer at the time Emily completely took over the project after her husband fell ill with decompression sickness from an accident in the caissons. Emily managed contractors and construction officials over technical details while also managing the board of directors and the mayor of New York over commercial management of the project, and would be the first woman to address the American Society of Civil Engineers. After the completion of the bridge Emily would also go on to obtain a degree in Law from NYU.

We also get into some greater detail on the construction of the caissons and the technical specs behind the bridge including the many redundancies built into the design. John Roebling had famously said that even if the cables snapped the bridge would not fall, which would prove to be particularly important when some of the materials would turn out to be counterfeit due to contractor negligence and lead to cables snapping in the 1980s.

Later we speak with Chris Mealing, Unit Managing Director for Mott MacDonald. Chris began his career as a bridge engineer. We talk about the projects Chris is most proud of and how the scope and complexity of engineering projects have changed as the tools available to Engineers have become much more advanced:

“We can brute force stuff today that would’ve had to have been done elegantly 30 or 40 years ago”

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio

Next Episode

S02|01 - The Sydney Harbour Bridge

We spent most of our between-seasons break in Australia, so naturally the subject of our first episode of the season should be too! This engineering monument is the world’s widest and heaviest arch bridge and the world’s 7th longest spanning, it’s on the Australian National Heritage List and the New South Wales Heritage Register: the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

This iconic bridge connecting Sydney’s Central Business District with the north shore is affectionately known as “The Coathanger” and “The Iron Lung” and has been helping residents of Sydney cross the Sydney harbour since its construction in 1932. Prior to the construction of this bridge the only route across the harbour was by ferry, and by 1927 the use of these ferries had peaked at 47 million passengers annually, which was quickly more than halved when the bridge was constructed. Although the ferry still operates today the bridge is the primary mode of transportation, with its 6 lanes of traffic plus tramlines and bike paths transporting more than 150,000 vehicles, 2004 trains, and 1,650 bicycles every single day.

The bridge was originally proposed by English born architect Francis Greenway in 1815, but official planning would not begin until nearly a century later in 1914 when John Bradfield was appointed Chief Engineer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Metropolitan Railway Construction. Bradfield’s plans were heavily inspired by the Hell’s Gate Bridge in New York City and follows a similar design, right down to the four massive pylons situated on the ends of the bridge that exist solely as engineering placebos to help the public feel more comfortable using the arch bridge. After the Australian government passed the Sydney Harbour Bridge Act in 1922 bids for this project were opened up globally garnering 20 proposals from 6 different firms, ultimately being awarded to English firm Dorman Long & Company.

Construction cost for this project was one of the lowest we’ve ever looked at on the podcast, just $6.25 Million AUD or roughly $13.5 Million AUD today which is pretty cheap as far as bridges go! Whether this was a good deal or not this bridge had a more than 50 year long montage taking until 1988 to be paid off via the $3 AUD toll for crossing the bridge, which is today used to fund the future Sydney Harbour Tunnel project. Despite the relatively low cost of constructing the bridge annual maintenance currently costs approximately $5 Million AUD.

“You can see it from every corner of the city, creeping into frame from the oddest angles like an uncle trying to get into every snapshot" - Bill Bryson

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Learn more at: MeasuredInMetric.com | Facebook | Instagram

Music by: John Julius - Bandcamp.com

Edited by: Astronomic Audio