Men's creativity is manifested in many ways. When a road is cut off by a river, they build a bridge--which may be a work of art. Some say that architects are dreamers, who turn their dreams into reality. The Yuan Shan (prestressed concrete cantilever) Bridge on the north south freeway in Taipei was a dream and is now becoming a reality. It also is a work of art. It is one of the largest cantilever bridges in the world. The construction method used "travel wagons" moving by segments from both sides of the existing piers to pour concrete with reinforcing steel. The process continued, segment by segment, the whole length of the span until the "wagons" met midway at the hinged connection point. The north and south approaches of the bridge are supported on prestressed concrete girders and cast-in-place concrete piles with spans from 30 to 40 meters. The 6-lane main bridge is prestressed concrete cantilever construction at the center, with a total length of 671 meters. The maximum width is 34.6 meters. The north and south approaches are 158.8 meters and 525.5 meters long, respectively.

As conceived by its architect, the design of this bridge spanning the Keelung river avoided building piers in deep water, which would increase construction cost and obstruct the flood flow during typhoon periods. The bridge also will add to the beauty of the Taipei skyline. The superstructure of this bridge is a prestressed concrete cantilever structure in the form of box girders of three cells. The girders near the piers are 6.25 meters in depth, but only 1.8 meters near the hinged connection at the center. There are a total of six spans. Four spans are 75 meters, 150 meters, 118 meters and 43 meters in length, and two spans are each 142.5 meters long. Four travel wagons work simultaneously on the four segments of each span, each segment being four meters long. Each wagon weighs about 90 tons, with a carrying capacity of about 200 tons of concrete. Each working cycle takes about 6 to 8 days, for completion of a segment. Under this method of construction, inspections must be made every 30 minutes to insure that all segments will be perfectly aligned as planned. Under normal conditions, about 500 men and engineers are doing their best, working on the Yuan Shan bridge day and night. The construction is well ahead of schedule and no serious mistakes have been made since the beginning of work. It is said that so far the longest bridge span of this type in the world is somewhere is South America with 220 M spans, but their width is less than the 36 meters of the Yuan Shan bridge. But if you consider the bridge deck area between two piers, the Yuan Shan Bridge may be considered as one of the biggest of this type in the world. The total construction cost for this giant bridge is over US$20,000,000. The Republic of China takes pride in saying that the entire project, from design to creation as a prestressed concrete work of art, is an undertaking of local engineers and workers.