Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California
From wiki.travel.com
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening into the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. It connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County as part of US Highway 101 and California State Highway 1.
The Golden Gate Bridge was the largest suspension bridge in the world when it was completed in 1937 and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and the United States.
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History
The crossing of the Golden Gate Strait was for many years accomplished by a ferry running between the Hyde Street Pier at the foot of Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco and Sausalito in . The idea of a bridge to span the Golden Gate Strait was brought up in an article by the engineer James Wilkins. The bridge later earned its name, Golden Gate Bridge, after a mention of it in 1927, by San Francisco city engineer M. M. O’Shaughnessy.
The bridge was the idea of Joseph Strauss, an engineer responsible for over 500 drawbridges, though they were far smaller than this project and mostly inland. Starting in 1921 with his first drawings that were far from approved, Strauss spent over a decade drumming up support in Northern California. Strauss' initial design comprised a massive cantilever on each side connected with a central suspension segment. Although at this point the coming reality of a massive span across the Gate was a foregone conclusion, Strauss' design was universally loathed as graceless and hamfisted, and local authorities only allowed the project to go forward if Strauss' original cantilever concept was thoroughly set aside. Strauss was quietly compelled to accept the input of several consulting project experts, who in turn--and with little final credit--were responsible for the final form of the bridge we see today.
Foremost, architect Irving Morrow, was almost solely responsible for the airy and graceful Art Deco suspension design now recognized around the world--as well as the choice of the famous "International Orange" color. Moreover, Strauss himself had little experience with, or understanding of, the requirements of cable-suspension designs, and so senior engineer Charles Alton Ellis -- collaborating remotely with famed bridge designer Leon Moisseiff --became the true engineer of the project.[1] The two were in fact wholly responsible for both the complicated structural design and the painstaking hand calculations involved over the course of the work.
Strauss stayed on as the titular head of the project, and while his day-to-day responsibilities overseeing the construction were certainly vast, complex, and sometimes groundbreaking--he innovated the use of safety netting beneath heretofore unprotected steelworkers, for instance--he was no longer the bridge's engineer or designer in any meaningful way. Nevertheless, with an eye toward posterity he made certain to downplay the contributions of the other team members, and thus history has recorded Strauss as the figure most responsible for the design and vision of the instantly-famous span.[2]
Genesis
The project cost over $27 million.
In May 1924, a hearing, through a petition, was heard by Colonel Herbert Deakyne for the Secretary of War in a request to use land for the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Col. Deakyne, in the Secretary of War's name, approved to give the land needed for the bridge structure and leading roads to the "Bridging the Golden Gate Association" and both the San Francisco and the Marin counties pending further bridge plans by Mr. Strauss.
The Golden Gate Bridge was incorporated in 1928 as the official entity to design, construct, and finance the Golden Gate Bridge. The District includes not only the City & County of San Francisco, and Marin County, in whose boundaries the bridge sits, but also Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Del Norte counties. Representatives from each of the six counties sit on the District's Board of Directors. Voters within the District approved funding for the project in 1930 through a special bond issue that put their homes, farms and business properties up as collateral. This bond issue raised the initial $35 million to finance the building of the Bridge. Construction began on January 5, 1933. The construction budget at the time of approval was $30.1 million. Actual construction costs turned out to be $36.7 million, resulting in a cost overrun of 22%. The last of the construction bonds were retired in 1971, with $35 million in principal and nearly $39 million in interest being financed entirely from tolls. Strauss, a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, placed a brick from his alma mater's demolished McMicken Hall in the south anchorage before the concrete was poured. A unique aspect of the bridge's construction was the safety net set up beneath it, significantly reducing the expected number of deaths for such a project. 11 men were killed from falls during construction, and approximately 19 men were saved by the safety net. 10 of the deaths occurred near completion, when the net itself failed under the stress of a scaffold fall. The 19 workers whose lives were saved by the safety nets became proud members of the (informal) Halfway to Hell Club.
Since its completion, the bridge has closed due to windy conditions five times; 1951, 1982, 1983, 1996, and 2005. The 1982 event in particular was severe enough to set the bridge in visible motion, undulating in a motion somewhat reminiscent of the catastrophic "Galloping Gertie" in Washington State.
To commemorate Joseph Strauss for his part taken in the construction of the bridge, a statue of him was relocated in 1955 near the structure to remind people how important his work was in the building of the Golden Gate Bridge.<ref name="Owens" />
The center span was the longest among suspension bridges until 1964 when the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was erected between the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City. The Golden Gate Bridge also had the world's tallest suspension towers at the time of construction, and retained that record until more recently. In 1957, Michigan's Mackinac Bridge surpassed the Golden Gate Bridge's length to become the world's longest two tower suspension bridge in total length between anchorages. The longest center suspension span in the world and the longest two tower suspension bridge between anchorages is currently the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan.
As the only road to exit San Francisco to the north, the bridge is part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 and on an average day there are 100,000 vehicles crossing the bridge. The bridge has six total lanes of vehicle traffic, and walkways on both sides of the bridge. The median markers between the lanes are moved to conform to traffic patterns. On weekday mornings, traffic flows mostly southbound into the city, so four of the six lanes run southbound. Conversely, on weekday afternoons, four lanes run northbound. While there has been discussion concerning the installation of a movable barrier since the 1980s, the Bridge Board of Directors, in March 2005, committed to finding funding to complete the $2 million study required prior to the installation of a moveable median barrier. The eastern walkway is for pedestrians and bicycles during the weekdays and during daylight hours only, and the western walkway is open to bicyclists on weekday afternoons, weekends, and holidays. The speed limit on the Golden Gate Bridge was reduced from 55 mph (90 km/h) to 45 mph (70 km/h) on October 1, 1983.
On September 1, 2002, the toll for Southbound motor vehicles was raised from US$3.00 to US$5.00. Northbound motor vehicle, bicycle, and pedestrian traffic remains toll free. The rate for two-axle vehicles and motorcycles is $5 cash, or $4 with FasTrak electronic RF payments. For vehicles with more than two axles, the toll rate is $2.50 per axle.
On November 10, 2006, the Board of Directors of the Golden Gate Bridge District recommended a sponsorship program for the bridge, as it has been losing money for several years. The Public Information Committee has said that any sponsorship program will not include changing the name of the bridge, or placing advertising on the bridge itself, although it's not clear what such a deal would include. As of 2006, Phase I of the project, which involved investigating potential sponsors of the bridge and analyzing the fiscal benefits has been completed, and Phase II, actual implementation of the program, is awaiting a go-ahead from the Board. [3]. As of February 2007, the Board has made a $1 toll increase their most favored option to increase funding. [4]
Aesthetics
Despite its red appearance, the color of the bridge is officially an orange vermilion called International orange. The color was selected by consulting architect Irving Morrow because it blends well with the natural surroundings yet enhances the bridge's visibility in fog.
The bridge is widely considered one of the most beautiful examples of bridge engineering, both as a structural design challenge and for its aesthetic appeal. It was declared one of the modern Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. According to Frommer's travel guide, the Golden Gate Bridge is "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world."
Aesthetics was the foremost reason why the first design of Joseph Strauss was rejected. Upon re-submission of his bridge construction plan, he added details, such as lighting to outline the bridge's cables and towers.
Paintwork
The bridge was originally painted with red lead primer and a lead-based topcoat, which was touched up as required. In the mid-1960s, a program was started to improve corrosion protection by stripping the original paint off and repainting the bridge with zinc silicate primer and, originally, vinyl topcoats. Acrylic topcoats have been used instead since 1990 for air quality reasons. The program was completed in 1995, and there is now maintenance by 38 painters to touch up the paintwork where it becomes seriously eroded. To date, once painters finish painting the bridge from one side to the other, they start all over again, due to the elements which predispose the bridge to rust; thus painting of the bridge is never truly finished.
Suicides
The Golden Gate Bridge is a notorious site for suicide, since a fall from that height into the water is almost inevitably fatal. The official suicide count ended in 2005 when the number exceed 1,200. In the eight years preceding, 2003, there was an average of one suicide jump every two weeks, which brought the unofficial total to over 1,300 suicides. Until the official count was discontinued, suicide locations were officially documented according to which of the bridge's 128 lamp posts the jumper was nearest to when he or she jumped.
There were 34 confirmed bridge jump suicides in 2006, in addition to four jumpers whose bodies were never recovered and various unwitnessed deaths that appeared to be suicides but could not be confirmed. The California Highway Patrol removed seventy apparently suicidal people from the bridge that year. Currently, it is said that a person jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge every 15 days.[5]
The 220 foot (67 m) fall from the bridge takes four seconds and jumpers hit the water at 75 miles per hour (120 km/h). As of 2006, only 26 people are known to have survived the jump. Those who do survive always strike the water feet first and most suffer multiple internal injuries and broken bones. One young man, John Kevin Hines, survived a jump off the bridge in 2000, although the impact broke his back and shattered multiple vertebrae.
Safety
The Golden Gate Bridge is also notorious as the site of head-on collisions between North-bound and South-bound cars. After one such collision, on June 24, 1996, the Bridge District was sued for not installing a movable barrier between North-bound and South-bound traffic lanes. Such a barrier has been designed: it has been estimated that it would cost about $1 million USD to build.
See also
External links
- The official website of the Golden Gate Bridge
- Video of the 1936 opening day of Golden Gate Bridge
- Golden Gate Bridge Photographs
- Golden Gate Bridge Visitor Guide
- The New Yorker: Fatal Grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge
- Lethal Beauty, a series of articles from the San Francisco Chronicle about suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge.
- The Museum of San Francisco's Story Behind the Construction of the Span
- PBS American Experience
- Golden Gate Bridge Design and Construction Statistics
- Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit Project
- VRML and Google Earth 3D Models of the Golden Gate Bridge
- Golden Gate Bridge Virtual Tour
- Golden Gate Bridge Cam
- SAGGB - Doyle Drive The southern approach to the Golden Gate Bridge