The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
Saturday, 16th April 2005 by Alex Turnbull
Following on from my previous post, I'd like to proudly present the world's longest bridge. Yes it's true, no bridge in the entire world is any longer (check for yourself at the Guinness World Records site).
At a staggering 23 miles long, this thing is nearly unbelievable. It must take at least 25 minutes to get across it, assuming you were hitting the speed limit all the way! The bridge joins Mandeville and Metairie in Louisiana, and each week day over 30,000 cars use it to cross Lake Pontchartrain.
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Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
It’s almost a marathon! The world’s fastest runners would take 2 hours to make it across.
I’ve driven it several times and it’s a doozy. Takes a bit longer than half an hour to cross (with a little bit of speeding thrown in). It was one of the first things I looked at when I heard about Google sat maps.
Wow! Can someone explain to me why they needed a bridge there? This thing must have cost a lot and it seem the “other” way is probably not more that twice the distance, which mean about 1hr drive… or was the other bridge not there before? Is is because there is really a lot of traffic??? I’m curious… thanks…
Dear god, but why? Especially when you can simply take the I-10 and I-12 freeways to get to the same place, and probably faster? And safer ! — It looks like you’re pretty much screwed if anything bad happens on/to the bridge while you’re on it. How’d ya like to be 12 miles from anywhere and suddenly have a ship smack into the upcoming suspension tower? I’d also hate to like, you know, run out of gas somewhere in the middle. I’d also hate to be behind such a person. Though… there looks like there’s some kind of exit about 2/5 of the way northbound — is this perhaps some kind of helpful commuting service?
It would take a simple 4-mile bridge to ford Puget Sound from Seattle to Bainbridge, cutting need for ferries (one or two more modest bridges would make it a hop skip and jump to Bremerton), but I don’t ever see them even remotely conceiving of such an idea up here. Ya either wait for and starve on a ferry, or ya route down around Tacoma; either way you suck it up.
They need it to get to one of the new towns that was springing up right next to New Orleans… ok just check google maps its mandeville. Alot of rich people, alot, live in Mandeville. People like to live their because its a smaller town then just commute to work in new orleans. I think the brigde was payed for buy a toll, I dont know if thats complete funding or not. Hope that helps.
The original two lane brindge was constructed in the 1950s (it’s now two -two lane bridges side by side with crossovers for use in case of emergency). Lake Pontrhartrain is relatively shallow (about 28′ on average, I believe) so there is no suspension section. There is a section with draw bridge to allow for the passage of barges and boats. There was one bad accident years ago that took out a section and with no warning system in place, a commercial bus went off the open span killing a number of people. A warning system is now in place.
There may be a reasonable explanation as to why they built a bridge instead of simply going around the lake. If you look, the roads extending west of the city are all causeways themselves–the terrain is entirely swamp. As was mentioned previously, the lake is relatively shallow. The expense of building a bridge was probably not much more than that of building a longer route through the swamp, which I have to imaging is a costly endeavor.
Anyone who has driven through Louisiana on I-10 knows what I mean by swamp causeway. The freeway runs for miles above the bayous. I can’t imagine what went in to building it.
I live in New Orleans and yes it is a HELL of alot faster the cross the causeway than to just go around and Casey is right its kind of dangerous to just drive through the swamp….besides its kind of fun….nice stretch of highway to go fast…REALLY FAST….ANYWHO…it takes about 40 minutes and its acually 26 miles long
My mother commutes across this every day. I used to for one summer. I hate it. I go to school in New Orleans, and I’m living in New Orleans. No way I’m fighting the commuters.
For the record, it can be crossed in well under 24 minutes at night, if you’re careful. More like… 18. Which… my friend did. One time.
Also I think the lake is closer to 8 feet deep in a lot of places than 28. It’s a glorified swamp, and it’s brackish!
Mike, what are you smoking? You say you live in New Orleans, yet you say its 26 miles long and takes 40 minutes to cross???
WHAT?
As anyone who has driven across it knows, it is 24 miles. More like 23.something but the last blue mile marker you see says “24”. And since they upped the speed limit to 65, it now takes about 20 minutes to cross.
Actually, it always took about 20 minutes to cross since people were doing 70 when the speed limit was 55.
Since I lived in Mandeville and crossed this bridge many a time, I know this. (One time I crossed it 8 times in a series of “oh crap, how did I forget something ELSE again???” in 4 hours)
Toll is $3, only from the Mandeville side.
And yes, it is a HECK of a lot faster than just driving around to Slidell or Hammond. 20 minutes is MUCH faster than 80 minutes.
I have to concur with Brad. He’s got it dead on. I’ve lived on both sides of Lake Ponchartrain, and spent a lot of time living on one side while commuting to work on the other side.
The Causeway began as a single two-way bridge in the mid 1950s (1955, I think), and then, years later, a second bridge was built. There’s a series of crossovers where you can pull over or turn around, and it’s well-patrolled by Causeway Police. As for breaking down on the Causeway: I’ve done it. At night (with the exception of the crossovers, the bridge is unlit). The police were fast and everything went smoothly.
The speed limit was 55 until very recently, when it was upped to 65. The older span is still 55 at night, though. It’s 24 miles long, and in my entire life, I think there’ve been fewer than ten times where it’s taken me longer than 24 minutes to cross. Usually more like 20. 40 minutes is how long it might take when it’s foggy and there’s one lane open in each direction and a speed limit of 35. At peak commuter time, it might take 40 minutes to get ONTO the Causeway, but once you’re on, it’s perfectly fast.
Anyone who’s traveled around here knows damn well that trying to go around the lake to get to Mandeville & Covington (through Slidell or Hammond) is probably more than doubling their travel time.
Everyone seems to be forgetting the most interesting part of the bridge. When you’re travelling on the bridge, you can’t see land on the destination side. The bridge just drops off at the horizon. I don’t remember exactly, but I think you may not be able to see land in either direction from the middle of the bridge. The bridge also has it’s own police force.
I am terrified to cross that bridge. I will go 2 hours out of my way to get to New Orleans than to cross that bridge. NO WAY
This bridge goes on FOREVER!! I flew over it in 1999. Good picture. I’d love to drive over it someday. . .bet it does take half an hour at least.
Re: Nick’s comment about it being a marathon….
For one (or two?) years, the New Orlean Mardi Gras Marathon, was in fact held on the bridge. I seem to recall that there was a police strike in the city and the marathon moved there. It was a fast race with the wind at the back of the runners, but the consensus by the runners was that the isolation was just too eerie.
speed limit is 65 they will give you a ticket for going 67.. when they rasied the speed limit from 55 to 65 they did it because people would drive 55 so they rasied it to 65 to force the slow drivers to speed up.. and told the people who were drive 65 that this does not mean you can drive 75.. you would be crazy to go faster on the bridge because cops are waiting for you.. also one time in the fog someone went of the side of the bridge and no one noticed till the person didn’t show up for work.. fog really sucks there 35 mph one lane with a cop excorting groups of cars over.. even if you use the twin span from the east you have the same problem.. there also many times have had 70+ car wrecks on one side of the bridge people rubber necking cause another pipe up on the other side… avg depth of the lake is 13 feet and water is toxic so you can’t swim in it.. i fish in it but would never consider eating the fish
the worst thing about the bridge is there are NO shoulder lanes… just the regular two lanes for traffic and then where a shoulder would be is just a step up to a two foot wide walkway on either side of traffic… this is what makes it so dangerous in case of an emergency… the one accident that sticks in my mind that happened several years ago… 4 women were traveling across and their car had a flat tire… a good samaritan gentleman stopped to change their tire for them and another car came upon them not noticing they weren’t moving and ran into them killing them all! frequent drivers can be lulled into complacentcy or distraction very easily…. i live on the north shore and travel it as little as possible…
I live in Florida and it takes forever to get road work done here. Does anyone know how long it took to build that bridge
They started to build the brigde in 1955 to 1969 (11 years), i just looked it up!!!!!
Yes, this bridge is long, and the morons forgot to build a shoulder on the dam bridge. If one moron breaks down, 20k people are late for work. Only a stagnant sues pool like New Orleans would you have to pay $3.00 to cross this dilapidated piece of junk. If you need to make a meeting, I would leave an hour early because you will most likely be held up by someone breaking down of one of their nitwit workers closing a lane for no apparent reason. New Orleans is a joke of city and the causeway bridge fits right in!
Hey CHUCK,
Why don’t you just move away! What an idiot, if you don’t like it, leave – we all love the area, that’s why we are here. You obviously don’t, so what’s keeping you here, greed, stupidity? Probably both, get lost you idiot!
ya’ll crazy asw hell for crossing that scary as bridge and thats all i have to say
The bridges are24 miles long and cost 51 million dollers to build. For 8 miles in the middle of the bride you can’t see land. This bridge is huge
I commute across this bridge everyday 5 times a week. It can be very cumbersome and the traffic during rush hour is the worst. My first speeding ticket was on this stupid bridge….. a cop pulled me over because he said i was coming up too fast from behind him and speeding. I didn’t know they had radars behind their police cars???? I asked him if he caught me on the causeway cam and he didn’t answer (because I wasn’t anywhere near one)….I think he was just trying to make his commission by writing the damn ticket!
I’m from hawaii and I had to drive on this thing just to drive on it. ITS Great, never seen anything like it before. Its a monster, long, long, long.
For those asking why it is faster for those of us commuting every day to the city so many people now commute every day now more than ever due to the hurricane (realy even before that) people here just want to live outside the city. Now we have need for more than one bridge due to high traffic volume and to be honest I live in the middle of I-10 bridge & the Causeway it is quicker to take the causeway for myself and is about 45mins. to 1hr drive pending on how fast traffic is moving doing the speed limit of corse causeway police are constantly enfoceing the speed limit I just pray that I will never have too commute that long drive to work ever again. its way too long there and back for me to enjoy on a daily bases but for those coming to cross it because enjoy theres a point where you can no longer see either side of the shoreline north or south so have fun pinch some tail suck some heads and love some crafish
Alrlght folks, here are the facts on the Causeway Bridge. 1. It is 24 miles long, both spans. Brad was correct. 2. The first span, south bound, with $3 toll, 18 wheelers-$15, was started in 1955. It took only 18 months to build. Each section was built on land, then moved into place by barge and crane. 3. The second span, north bound, no toll, was started in 1969. It took 24 months to build. 4. Original speed limit was 55mph. It was raised to 65 mph. The south bound was 55 at night, but is now a cautionary 55mph at the 5 humps. 5. The humps are 4 miles apart. 3 small humps, on each span, at the 4, 12, and 20 mile markers, and 2 tall humps, on each span, at the 8 and 16 mile markers. The 16 mile hump is the draw bridge near the north end of the spans. 6. There are 7 crossovers. One at each short hump (read speed trap, ha ha), and 2 crossovers at the tall humps. 7. There are call boxes every 1/2 mile, And Causeway Police responce is very quick. Don’t run out of gas on the bridge, $300.00 ticket. But they will give you enough to get off the bridge. 8. The bridge police will drive so fast on the bridge, we say they have their pilots
licence. Ha Ha. Check out http://www.thecauseway.com