Charleston's Cooper River crossing is drawing on a flurry of advances in design and construction of cable-stayed bridges from around the globe. The project has captured the imagination of South Carolina's largest city, and the workers building it. "We have the greatest bridge in the world here," says a foreman standing on one of two 6,500-cu-yd rock islands at the base of what will be North America's longest cable-stayed span, at 1,546 ft. Above him, the legs of what will be a 575-ft-high diamond-shaped tower rise to about half their eventual height in the sweltering South Carolina heat.
The 2.5-mile-long, eight-lane crossing features a major-league roster of designers and builders who are using experience with previous cable-stayed megaprojects to achieve an affordable bridge that is aesthetically pleasing, strong enough for hurricanes, flexible enough for earthquakes and high enough to allow the next generation of ships to pass beneath.