A bridge to nowhere is a bridge where one or both ends are broken, incomplete, or unconnected to any roads. If it is an overpass or an interchange, the term overpass to nowhere or interchange to nowhere may be used respectively.[2][3]
There are five main origins for these bridges:
Further, the term "bridge to nowhere" may be used by political opponents to describe a bridge (or proposed bridge) that serves low-population areas at high cost, a symbol of pork barrel spending.[4]
It may also be used to describe a useless construction in overall.
It can simply mean as well "dead end" or "useless" in that way without referring to a construction.
The colloquial name for a bridge to nowhere in Germany is "Soda-Brücke" (a pun on "so da" = "just there"). Many of the bridges were built in the 1970s as part of the Autobahn network, but the oil crisis and rising environmental consciousness slowed many highway extensions.
The world's longest sea bridge, built in Qingdao, [the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge ] has few users, making it the Chinese version of the "Bridge to Nowhere".