Construction began on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on July 9, 1933, and it opened for traffic on November 12, 1936. The bridge has two decks, one above the other. Originally, the upper deck was used for automobiles while the lower deck was for truck and railroad traffic. In 1958, the bridge was reconfigured so that westbound traffic used the upper deck while eastbound traffic used the lower.
The bridge is actually two bridges connected by a tunnel on Yerba Buena Island. The east span uses a combination of a cantilever span, truss bridges and a truss causeway. The western span consists of two suspension bridges and truss spans. From end to end, the entire bridge is 8.4 miles long.
Engineers discovered that the eastern span was highly susceptible to earthquake damage and in 2002, construction began on a replacement. The new eastern span is scheduled to open in 2013.
By the way, the official name of the bridge is The James 'Sunny Jim' Rolph Bridge - although no one ever uses this name!
Feedback: Do you have corrections or contributions for this page? Want to make a suggestion? Click here to send me an e-mail. I am espcially interested in memories, stories, postcards and photographs. Thanks!
