''Bypass'' Bridge?EUR??,,????'?????<

The Hoover Dam Bridge Bypass, 1,500 feet south of the Hoover Dam, opened to traffic on October 19, 2010. The 1,900-foot span is 890 feet above the Colorado River and has the tallest segmental concrete bridge columns in the world. A sidewalk on the north side of the bridge (facing the dam) offers optimum viewing.

Nov. 18 was Guinness World Records Day, with a seemingly unlikely number of people (the estimate was 200,000) vying for inclusion in the 2011 edition of the Guinness World Records.

Most of those folks won?EUR??,,????'?????<

While the Bridge Bypass comes in second to the Royal Gorge Bridge, which soars 1,053 above the Arkansas River in Colorado, it boast the tallest segmental concrete columns of any bridge in the world.

The Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, its official name, is also the first concrete-steel composite arch bridge built in the U.S. Since 1968, designers have put to paper ideas for a bridging the Colorado River just downstream from the Hoover Dam. In 2004, T.Y. Lin International (TYLI) of San Francisco, an award-winning bridge design firm, was commissioned to design the challenging landmark. David Goodyear was the TYLI?EUR??,,????'?????<

The span construction is a twin-rib arch and composite deck design that is cost-effective and complies with the environmental impact statement's commitment to minimize obstruction of the site spectacular views.

Rigorous standards for the bridge design include the ability to withstand a 1,000-year earthquake and wind speeds 25 percent in excess of code requirements.

The bridge?EUR??,,????'?????<

The design and construction budget combined was $240 million: $100 million in federal funds, $20 million each from the states of Arizona and Nevada, and $100 million in state bond funds. The Colorado River Bridge construction itself cost $114 million.