On the Road to Nowhere: Abandoned Bridges

Viaduc de Caramel, France (photograph by Jpmgir/Wikimedia)

Bridges to nowhere are international monuments of failure. Whether the highways meant to connect to them never got built, funding dried out, contracts got canceled, or they were hit by a disaster and left to ruin, these bridges are an overpass to nothing. Some like the isolated Viaduct Petrobras in the Brazilian jungle have found new life as destinations for bungee jumpers and rappellers, but most just wait idly for a purpose that may never arrive. In Germany there are so many of these bridges to nowhere due to a stunted Autobahn plan that they have their own term — “Soda-Brücke” — a pun roughly meaning “just there.”

Here is a collection of some of the world’s bridges to nowhere:

Castrop-Rauxel-Merklinde, Germany (photograph by DerHessi/Wikimedia)

Germany (photograph by Roehrensee/Wikimedia)

Euskirchen, Germany (photograph by Ketti2606/Wikimedia)

Vosges, France (photograph by Tangopaso/Wikimedia)

Viaduc du Carrei, Alpes-Maritimes, France (photograph by Tangopaso/Wikimedia)

Viaduc de Monti, Alpes-Maritimes, France (photograph by Tangopaso/Wikimedia)

Toulouse, France (photograph by Wojsyl/Wikimedia)

Maungaparua Stream, New Zealand (photograph by Joerg Mueller)

Dartmoor, UK (photograph by Gwyn Jones)

Dartmoor, UK (photograph by Guy Wareham)

East Midlands, UK (photograph by Alan Murray-Rust)

Lancaster Canal, UK (photograph by Geoff Kowalcyzk)

Guyhirn Wash, UK (photograph by Richard Humphrey)

East Wichel, UK (photograph by Brian Robert Marshall)

D & RG Narrow Gauge Trestle, Colorado (via Wikimedia)

Kinzua Viaduct, Pennsylvania, toppled by a 2003 tornado (photograph by Nicholas/Wikimedia)

South Platte River, Colorado (photograph by Fuzzy Gerdes)

San Gabriel Mountains, California (photograph by Jason Hickey)

photograph by Whewes

Belhaven, Scotland, which is only a bridge to nowhere in high tide (photograph by Martin Burns)

Monroe, Florida (photograph by Harald/Flickr user)

Chennai, India (photograph by Nagesh Jayaraman)

Taiwan (photograph by Alexander Synaptic)

North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany (photograph by Ralf Peter Reimann)

British Columbia, Canada (photograph by Dave Bezaire & Susi Havens-Bezaire)

Somerset, Bermuda (photograph by Larry Lamb) 

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (photograph by A. Thompson)

 
photograph by Libor Krayzel

St. Louis, Missouri (photograph by Matthew Hurst)

Pacific Northwest (photograph by Senia L.)

Quebec, Canada (photograph by Jason Carter)

Cabarete, Dominican Republic (photograph by Brad Perkins)

Mindenville, New York (photograph by Russ Nelson)

Avignon, France (photograph by Johnny Andrew Sherwood)

Sealy, Texas (photograph by Patrick Feller)

Bryan, Texas (photograph by Patrick Feller)

Big Flats, New York (photograph by Russ Nelson)

Eisenbahn, Germany (photograph by Störfix/Wikimedia)

Strépy-Bracquegnies, Hainaut, Belgium (photograph by Friedrich Tellberg)

Miles Glacier Bridge, Alaska, damaged by a 1964 earthquake (photograph by Jet Lowe)

Birmingham, England (photograph by Elliott Brown)

photograph by Jarrod Lombardo

Maldonado, Uruguay (photograph by Jimmy Baikovicius)

London, England (photograph by Secret Pilgrim)

Green Elm, Texas (photograph by Nicolas Henderson) 

Venture to more incredible ruins on Atlas Obscura >