San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge |
|---|
|
| Topic Navigation |
|---|
|
Wikipedia: San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge
Page Sections History Video Article Index |
History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge page on 1 November 2016, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge (known locally as the Bay Bridge) is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco and Oakland, it carries about 240,000 vehicles a day on its two decks. It has one of the longest spans in the United States.
The toll bridge was conceived as early as the gold rush days, but construction did not begin until 1933. Designed by Charles H. Purcell, and built by American Bridge Company, it opened on November 12, 1936, six months before the Golden Gate Bridge. It originally carried automobile traffic on its upper deck, and trucks and trains on the lower, but after the Key System abandoned rail service, the lower deck was converted to all-road traffic as well. In 1986 the bridge was unofficially dedicated to James Rolph.
The bridge has two sections of roughly equal length; the older western section, officially known as the Willie L. Brown Jr. Bridge (after former San Francisco Mayor and California State Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown Jr.), connects downtown San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island and the newer unnamed eastern section connects the island to Oakland. The Willie Brown bridge (west span) is a double suspension bridge with two decks, westbound traffic is carried on the upper deck and eastbound on the lower deck. The largest span of the original eastern section was a cantilever bridge. During the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, a section of the eastern span's upper deck collapsed onto the lower deck and the bridge was closed for a month. Reconstruction of the eastern section of the bridge as a causeway connected to a self-anchored suspension bridge began in 2002; the new bridge opened September 2, 2013 at a reported cost of over $6.5 billion. Unlike the west span and the original east span, the new east span is a single deck with the eastbound and westbound lanes on each side making it the world's widest bridge, according to Guinness World Records, as of 2014. Demolition of the old east span is expected to last until 2018.
| [San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Groundbreaking] 1932 Dignitaries celebrate the beginning of construction on this important structure. Shotlist: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Groundbreaking and Dedication from Goat Island in San Francisco Bay / Former President Herbert Hoover, Gov. James Rolph, Admiral Laws and others emerge from the admiral's residence on Goat Island / CU of group / parade scenes / speakers / general view of island / actual groundbreaking ceremonies, Gov. Rolph, Mr. Hoover and others including Miss Alameda, Miss San Leandro, Miss San Francisco, etc. as spadefuls of earth are turned over with a silver spade for the cameramen This film is available courtesy of the Prelinger Archives (public domain). Download San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Groundbreaking from The Internet Archive - 205MB - 7:45 |
| Date | Article | Author/Source |
|---|---|---|
| 21 October 2005 | Federal Highway Administration San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Statement | FHWA |