Talk:Pontoon bridge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Someone may want to mention why there are so many floating bridges in the Seattle area (and the one on Hood Canal). From what I understand, the only problem with floating bridges is that they aren't good in turbulent water. Lake Washington is unique in that it is relatively calm, extremely deep, very long but relatively narrow, and that two major cities lie at opposite sides of it's narrow axis. This makes it a perfect fit for floating bridges. The hood canal bridge is similar, though I would think the tides would affect it.--drew1718 13:48, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Also part of the Lacey V. Murrow bridge and the Hood canal bridge have sunk in the past.--drew1718 13:53, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Why not be that someone, drew1718? :) --Lukobe 17:11, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Tides are no more disruptive to the Hood Canal bridge than changes in lake level are to the Lake Washington bridges. Note that hood canal tides are not particularly large and that being a deep and relatively narrow glacial gouge that winds do not raise large waves as they do in more shallow inland waters such as in some of the Great Lakes. The most likely destructive scenario would be due to tsunamis generated by earthquakes, but these would be more likely to affect locations near Olympia, at the shallow ends of both Hood Canal and Puget Sound. Leonard G. 23:31, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I might take you up on that Lukobe, I've doing a lot of research on it, but it's more specific to the floating bridges in Washington state. Thanks Leonard, I had thought that the lake bridges and the Hood Canal bridge where engineered in a similar way. But, I now know that the Hood Canal bridge is actually supported by columns on top of the pontoons. However, the most likely destructive scenario (naturally occuring at least) is a large storm, as they've sunk two of the floating bridges already. --drew1718 20:19, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
[edit] photo
not sure if all floating bridges are pontoon bridges, otherwise I would post my photo of the Eastbank Esplanade in Portland, Oregon. Cacophony 00:12, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Looks like a pontoon bridge, Cacophony. --drew1718 12:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the debate was don't move. —Nightstallion (?) Seen this already? 07:54, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Requested move
Pontoon bridge → Floating bridge – Not all floating bridges are pontoon bridges, but floating bridge redirects to pontoon bridges. There probably is not enough material to have a separate article, so I suggest that the name be changed to floating bridge and that content about other types of floating bridges be added. Pontoon bridge will redirect to floating bridge. See this for a previous discussion. -- Kjkolb 02:36, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
- Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
- Oppose. I might be looking at this as Churchill said of Chamberlain view of foreign policy "through the wrong end of a municipal drain", but an article on pontoon bridges is useful for military articles. I would suggest that you break the floating bridge sections out of this article into a new one and keep the article pontoon bridge less the sections on floating bridges if you think that there is enough material for a floating bridge article. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
[edit] Requested move 2
I forgot to check back here before the discussion was already closed. It seemed to be closed pretty rapidly, too, about 4 days. I did not want to mess with the "closed" section above, so I am putting my response here.
I think that I should explain better (it is perfectly reasonable to disagree with my position, but I think I may not have explained it very well). Pontoon bridges are a subtype of floating bridges, but almost all floating bridges are pontoon bridges. There is a section in the article called "floating bridges", but it is just examples of bridges and all of them are probably of the pontoon type. The way that Wikipedia defines "pontoon" means even things like log bridges might be classified as pontoon bridges. The only floating bridges that are definitely not pontoon bridges that we could come up with are bridges supported by hulls - kind of like lining up a bunch of boats and constructing a roadway over it. I don't think that we could make an article bigger than a substub about floating bridges if pontoon bridges are not included. Therefore, I suggest that the name of this article be changed to floating bridges. Except for the introduction, the rest of the article would be the same, except a small section for non-pontoon floating bridges would be made. Pontoon bridge would then redirect to floating bridge. Here is an example edit to show how the article would be changed. It was just a rough edit and I forgot to put in that most floating bridges are pontoon bridges, but hopefully you can get the idea.
An article on floating bridges could be beefed up if we limited what is defined as a pontoon. Other sources don't seem to have the same definition that we do. They seem to only include completely enclosed, watertight compartments, particularly rigid ones. Wikipedia includes "solid lightweight materials", so basically anything that floats becomes a pontoon, like styrofoam and wood (which are sometimes used for bridges). There is also the question of whether watertight compartments that are not rigid, like rubber and plastic bladders, should be called pontoons (I don't know if they have ever been used for bridges, though). -- Kjkolb 12:53, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
