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Golden Gate, Skyway Voted Top Bridges

Thursday, February 9, 2012

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The Grand Canyon’s dizzying glass skywalk and the venerable Golden Gate have been named the world’s top bridges in a new survey by Travel + Leisure.

The Grand Canyon Skyway—a transparent, horseshoe-shaped, cantilever bridge 4,000 feet above the canyon floor—was voted the Top New Bridge worldwide in the magazine’s first reader survey of world landmarks.

Complexsimplelic / Creative Commons (left); GrandCanyonNationalPark.com (right)

The Grand Canyon Skyway offers a stunning view from 4,000 feet above the floor of the canyon.

The “New Bridge” category was open to any span that opened after 1996. The Skyway, 120 miles east of Las Vegas, opened in 2007.

Only one other U.S. bridge made the Top 10: Boston’s Zakim came in at No. 7.

The Top 10 New Bridges:

1. Grand Canyon Skywalk (Arizona)
2. Henderson Waves Pedestrian Bridge (Singapore)
3. Millau Viaduct, Millau (France)
4. Ponte della Costituzione (Venice)
5. Langkawi Sky Bridge, Langkawi (Malaysia)
6. Puente de la Mujer (Buenos Aires)
7. Zakim Bridge (Boston, MA)
8. Incheon Bridge (South Korea)
9. Octávio Frias de Oliveira Bridge (São Paulo, Brazil)

Golden Glow

The beloved Golden Gate, which is celebrating its 75 birthday this year, landed the No. 5 spot among the world’s great landmarks, behind only the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, Machu Picchu in Peru, and the Colosseum of Rome.

Rich Niewiroski Jr. / Creative Commons

More beloved than the Great Wall of China or India’s Taj Mahal, the Golden Gate Bridge turns 75 this year.

The honor elevated the Golden Gate in readers’ hearts above the Pyramids of Giza, India’s Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Acropolis of Athens, and London’s Big Ben, among other landmarks.

The Golden Gate also ranked third overall for Most Visited Landmarks.

ila-chateau.com

The world’s highest bridge—France’s cable-stayed Milau Viaduct, which opened in 2004—came in third among Top New Bridges.

The magazine posted the online survey from Sept. 15 to Oct. 31, 2011. Respondents were asked to rate their favorite 60 landmarks in a variety of categories. The results were published in Travel + Leisure’s January issue.

Read the full list of reader choices here.