Carquinez Bridge

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**Carquinez Bridge**
The Carquinez Bridge comprises three parallel bridges: (from left to right) a 2003 suspension bridge, a 1927 cantilever bridge, and a 1958 cantilever bridge
Official name	Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge (suspension bridge)
Carries	7 lanes of I-80, pedestrians and bicycles.
Crosses	Carquinez Strait
Locale	Crockett, California and Vallejo, California
Design	2 Cantilever bridges and 1 Suspension bridge
Total length	0.66 miles (3465 feet / 1056.1 m / 1.06 Km)
Opening date	May 21, 1927 (original span) 1958 (eastbound) November 11, 2003 (westbound)
Destruction date	2006 (original span)
Toll	$3.00 (eastbound) (FasTrak)
Maps and aerial photos Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps Topographic map from TopoZone Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

The Carquinez Bridge refers to parallel bridges which cross the Carquinez Strait linking Vallejo, California to the north, with Crockett, California to the south. The bridges are signed as part of Interstate 80. Toll is only charged to eastbound traffic.

The original bridge, a steel cantilever bridge, was designed by Robinson & Steinman and dedicated on May 21, 1927; costing eight million dollars to build, it was the first major bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area.^[1]

Upon completion of the 1927 bridge, the Lincoln Highway was rerouted over the span. The Lincoln Highway was the first road across America. Its original alignment from Sacramento to San Francisco avoided the un-bridged waterways of the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento Delta by routing itself through the Altamont Pass and the central valley. With the bridge built, the Sacramento to San Francisco route was realigned in 1928 to pass along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay, then in a northeastern direction.

In 1958, a similar parallel bridge was built alongside the original one to accommodate the ever-increasing traffic. The original 1927 span served westbound traffic while the newer 1958 span served eastbound traffic.

In 2003, as a resolution to seismic problems of the aging 1927 span, a new suspension bridge was opened to replace it. This new bridge was named the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge, after an ironworker who worked on a number of the San Francisco Bay Area bridges, including the Golden Gate Bridge. This span features a pedestrian and bicycle path, completing a bike trail which circles the entire Bay Area. The span measures 0.66 miles (3465 feet / 1056.1 m / 1.06 km). The bridge was dedicated on November 8, 2003 and opened for traffic on November 11. It is the newest suspension bridge built in the United States, as of 2003. The 1927 span is now in a demolition phase, which will be completed in 2007, after it was temporarily used to hold eastbound traffic while the eastbound span underwent improvements to its span.^[2]

[edit] Carquinez Bridge in the media

The 1927 span of the Carquinez Bridge is featured on a Season 4 episode of MythBusters in the Minitaure Earthquake Machine segment. This experiment, based upon the researches of Nikola Tesla, employed a small tunable reciprocating mass driver to shake the bridge at its resonant frequency. While not structurally significant, the shaking was felt some distance from the driver.
A documentary film focusing on the history of the 1927 bridge and its deconstruction is currently being prepared and is expected to be completed by the end of 2006.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

^ The Barrier Broken - Vallejo Evening Chronicle, May 21, 1927
^ "Old Carquinez Bridge is disappearing" - San Francisco Chronicle, April 25, 2006.

[edit] External links

Aerial photo of the bridge

Bridging the Bay History of the Carquinez Bridge, as well as other bridges.
New Bridge - Site about the Zampa bridge's opening celebration
Caltrans New Carquinez Bridge page
Dick McCabe Jr's Site - Site written by a union ironworker who worked on the bridge with a journal of the construction progress.

San Francisco Bay Area Toll Bridges
North-South direction
Golden Gate Bridge - Carquinez Bridge - Benicia-Martinez Bridge - Antioch Bridge
East-West direction
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge - Bay Bridge - San Mateo-Hayward Bridge - Dumbarton Bridge