GREAT BRIDGE PROJECT

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1933, Page 15

GREAT BRIDGE PROJECT

ACROSS TO OAKLAND

SAN FRANCISCO BAY

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SAN FRAN CISCO, 21st December.. Work will commence on Ist March on the first -unit of the great structure which is to span San Francisco Bay and link this city with Oakland, realising a dream of fifty years. To cost ultimately 75,000,000 dollars, the project, often thought incapable of realisation, has been made possible by the Reconstruction Finance ; Corporation, established by President Hoover, which has taken up 80 per cent, of the bonds, : "With its approaches, the bridge will be more than four, miles long, threefourths of it lying over water, which in places is 300 ft deep and is shallow in^ no spot except in immediate proximity to San Francisco shore line' of Yerba Buena, Island. No suspension bridge in the world is at all comparable to the combined projected spans be.tween the city and the island. The undertaking becomes a tunnel, through the peak of the island, and thence by cantilever and steel trestle reaches the eastern shore of the bay. The suspension part of the bridge will be divided into five spans. The end spans, from the 500 ft towers, to the land anchorages, will be , 1150 ft each. Next to those on either side will be a 2400 ft span, supported in tho centre by a concrete pier 300 ft high. This central pier is thought to be a unique feature in suspension bridges, and was adopted by the engineers to permit all the towers to be kept at the uniform height of 500 ft. The spans will overhang, one of the world's busy waterways, and give ample clearance for .the tallest liners or warships. The space ■between-each pair of towers will be as wide -'.'as the ■ channel into nearly all the great Harbours. ' '. .-■". - The bridge will have two decks, one of which will.accommodate intefurban and, possibly at a late date, transconi tinental trains. The other will, have sis lanes for fast automobile traffic, and three for lorries, trucks, and other slow motor vehicles. . ' ; When the bridge is opened-'in 1937, tho revenue, according to present estimates, will be about .7,000,000 dollars a year. ■ .-.-., <-