BUILDING BIG: Databank: Sunshine Skyway Bridge - PBS

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Sunshine Skyway Bridge
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Vital Statistics: Location: St. Petersburg and Bradenton, Florida, USA Completion Date: 1987 Cost: $244 million Length: 29,040 feet Type: Cable-Stayed Purpose: Roadway Materials: Steel, concrete Longest Single Span: 1,200 feet Engineer(s): Figg & Muller Engineering Group

Completed in 1987, the Sunshine Skyway is the world's longest cable-stayed concrete bridge. It is probably the best known of the several dozen cable-stayed bridges that have been built in the United States since the late 1970s. Its popularity may be due to its unique color -- its cables are painted a bright taxicab yellow -- but the bridge also boasts an interesting history.

Sunshine Skyway Bridge
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The Sunshine Skyway isn't the first bridge to span the broad mouth of the Tampa Bay. In fact, a four-mile steel cantilever bridge used to live where the new Sunshine Skyway now stands. But during a violent thunderstorm on the morning of May 9, 1980, the freighter Summit Venture plowed into the cantilever bridge. More than 1,000 feet of the bridge fell into the bay, killing 35 motorists and bus passengers instantly.

The Florida Department of Transportation began construction on a safer Sunshine Skyway Bridge only days later. more than 300 precast concrete segments were linked together with high-strength steel cables to form the roadway. Protecting the new bridge from ships was a big priority, so they installed large concrete islands, called dolphins, around each of the bridge's six piers to absorb unwanted impact. Since it opened to traffic in 1987, the sleek, new Sunshine Skyway has won dozens of engineering and design awards.

Here's how this bridge stacks up against some of the longest-spanning bridges in the world. (total length, in feet)
Chart showing the relative size of the longest bridges in the world
Sunshine Skyway Bridge 29,040'
Fast Facts:
  • The dolphins around each pier were designed to withstand the impact of an 87,000-ton ship.
  • Twenty-one steel cables support the roadway. The cables are sheathed in steel pipes, nine inches in diameter. The pipes were painted a brilliant yellow to reflect its location: the Sunshine State.
  • Forty-foot-wide roadways run on either side of the cables. This design allows drivers to have unobstructed views of the water.
  • Tampa is a busy shipping port. To ensure that navigation would not be blocked, engineers designed the bridge to soar 190 feet above the water.
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