Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Wednesday, 5th April 2006 by

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.