Engineers don't build the cheapest bridge that just barely won't fail. They build the cheapest bridge that satisfies thousands of pages of regulatory requirements maintained and enforced by dozens of different government entities. Those regulations range from safety, to aesthetic, to environmental, to economic, to arcane.

Left to their own devices, engineers would build the cheapest bridge they could sell that hopefully won't collapse. And no care for the impact on any stakeholder other than the one paying them.

What would happen if we made bridges to last as long as possible, to withstand natural disasters and require minimal maintenance?

What if we built things that are meant to last? Would the world be better for it?

> the cheapest bridge that just barely won't fail

That can't be right? What about safety factors

I'd describe that as passable engineering.

Good engineering is building the strongest bridge within budget and time.

Um, ackshually, real civil/structural engineers—at least, those in the global north—design bridges, roads, and buildings with huge tolerances (multiple times the expected loads) because unexpected shit happens and you don't want to suffer catastrophic failure when conditions are just outside of your typical use case and have a Tacoma Narrows Bridge type situation on your hands.