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Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Posted by , Wednesday, 5th April 2006

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The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is the world’s longest cable-stayed concrete bridge, with a length of over 29,000 feet. It connects St. Petersburg in Pinellas County to Palmetto in Manatee County, Florida.

A two lane bridge was built in 1954 and upgraded to four lanes in 1971. In 1980 disaster struck when the SS Summit Venture collided with the bridge in a storm, destroying 1200 feet of the southbound bridge. The northbound bridge took all of the traffic whilst construction of the current bridge began in 1982 and finished in 1987 at a cost of $245 million. The original bridge was then demolished but the approaches were left to be used as fishing piers. Just to be careful, the piers of the main span of the new bridge are surrounded by large concrete barriers called “dolphins” that can apparently protect the bridge from collisions with freighters much larger than the Summit Venture.

Sunshine Skyway Bridge Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Thanks: drinklime, Jeff, Infinity & Eric T. Simon.

Countries: Florida

Posted in: ,

Related Posts: Oil Rocks, The Donghai Bridge, Three Sisters, Pittsburgh, The World’s Longest Pier, Barton Swing Aqueduct

7 Responses to 'Sunshine Skyway Bridge'

  1. 1. xf says: April 5th, 2006 at 11:37 am

    The wikipedia link is missing!!!!!!
    Here it is:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Skyway_Bridge

    ;)

  2. 2. Nigerache says: April 5th, 2006 at 11:55 am

    yep the bridge looks like shit though too bad

  3. 3. Fred says: April 5th, 2006 at 2:20 pm

    The bridge also happens to be the local’s favorite place to commit suicide. Seriously.

  4. 4. Paul says: April 6th, 2006 at 4:22 pm

    While the Sunshine Skyway is indeed the longest total bridge, it’s cable-stayed span of 1,200 feet (between the towers) is significantly smaller than that of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge over the Cooper River between Charleston and Mt. Pleasant, SC. The Ravenel Bridge was completed in July of 2005 (a year ahead of schedule) but the current Google images show it under construction.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ravenel_Bridge
    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  5. 5. salguod says: April 8th, 2006 at 6:08 pm

    The text said longest cable stayed concrete bridge.

    Anyone else notie that the actual towers are missing from the google image? The bridge shadow seems to wipe them out. You cna see the base of the cables and the tip of one tower, but the middle segment is gone.

    Placemark: Take a look. / Google Earth

  6. 6. Lee Bennett says: April 9th, 2006 at 4:16 pm

    Salguod - they’re sorta there. The image is actually pretty overexposed. The brightness of the seemingly white road is blinding out the ability to see the thin cables.

  7. 7. Steve Irwin says: March 20th, 2007 at 9:23 am

    They cut the fishing piers too short!!!

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