Phare du Monde

Imagine the fun if your brakes go out on the way down!

Does it count as a 'land speed record' if you're half a mile up?

World's longest hairpin turn. I guess if they put the parking garage at the bottom and just used elevators to get to the top, it wouldn't be noteworthy.

Phideaux - More like an air speed record when they blow through that flimsy fence. As an acrophobe I am quietly screaming just looking at the pictures. You could not get me up there at gunpoint.

World's longest perpetual vertical traffic jam, if anyone could even get onto that contraption. Many drivers wouldn't consider how much more fuel they will use on the incline and will run out. Add in all the fender-benders from people gawking at the view.
Forget the fancy restaurant; put a hotel at the top.

You know those chain systems which pull you through a car wash? They'd have to power it first thing in the morning because people are only going up, but for the rest of the day, those going down would act as a counterweight. In the evening, they could recapture the energy. Even though it wouldn't be terribly efficient, it'd be lot better than hundreds of automobile engines trying to make that climb.

I vaguely remember the first concrete silo being built in my area. Slipform construction. My very young brain pictured one going up to orbital heights. I know, now, why the height is limited, but I can't shake that mental image.

Now imagine the same with snow and ice. You wouldn't even need faulty brakes to slip and crash. What fun it would be to wait for the snowplow and salt truck to prepare the road, just to discover that salt gnawed in the concrete and thaw-and-freeze finished transforming the road into hickory fries and Swiss cheese. Not to mention the adorable blocks of concrete that would fall down on the passersby. Somebody said "Timber"?

In winter, you spray it with water to build up a thick layer of ice. Ultimate toboggan run! Can a sled go supersonic? Inquiring minds want to know!