Happy 73rd Birthday, San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge!!
73 years ago, the city of San Francisco witnessed an engineering miracle.
A massive bridge unlike any other now spanned the entire width of the bay, joining San Francisco and Oakland. It had been an undertaking epic even by today's standards, pushing the limits of bridge engineering as designers at the time understood it.
The statistics were impressive- the deepest foundation piers ever created for a bridge, twin suspension spans joined at a central anchorage, the widest and highest tunnel ever dug, the list went on.
On november 12, 1936, the people of San Francisco celebrated the opening of their miracle bridge with one heck of a party, that lasted for three days.
Sadly, this bridge has not recieved the love she deserves, being overshadowed by the Golden Gate Bridge, which was being built at the same time, and opening 6 months later. Even Golden Gate's chief engineer Joseph Strauss had harsh words for her- "That's no bridge, that's a trestle!"
Just like the Golden Gate, Bay Bridge was the result of several of the finest minds in the engineering business coming together, most notably Charles H. Purcell and Leon Moisseiff, among others.
Although she has served her two cities in relative obscurity these past 73 years, her life has been far from dull and uneventful.
On an average day, she handles about 280,000 vehicles
Her twin suspension spans are unique in the world- there are no other suspension bridges joined at a central anchorage in this manner.
She's had her eastern span struck by a small plane, had a segment of deck collapse during the 1989 earthquake, undergone a major seismic retrofit, survived a collision with a container ship, and has recently suffered the indignity of a cracked eyebar, and subsequent failure of the repair job, which led to about 5 days where she was closed to traffic.
And by 2013, her eastern cantilever span will be replaced by a unique self anchored suspension span.
For some more cool facts, I refer you here:
http://baybridgeinfo.org/history
http://baybridgeinfo.org/projects/west-span
Aww heck, the whole bay bridge news site is pretty sweet, check the whole thing out!
http://www.dot.ca.gov/baybridge/archive.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fra...and_Bay_Bridge
Here's some more info on that plane crash:
http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/BayBridgeT33.htm
A cute article about both bridges:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/2bridges.cfm
And here's a really cool construction video I just found!
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5db_1236982604
So let's celebrate by showing love and posting some pictures of this necklace-lighted Iron beauty! I'll get the ball rolling with a couple of my own pics:
