History
The original four-lane bridge opened in 1968. It consisted of twin spans of two lanes each with no shoulders and was heavily damaged during Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The storm surge knocked a total of 58 spans off the eastbound and westbound bridges and misaligned another 66 spans, causing the bridge to close to traffic in both directions. Traffic normally destined for the bridge was rerouted along US Highway 90 for over two months while temporary spans were built along the bridge's existing substructure, resulting in severe traffic jams. The original bridge, with its temporary spans, reopened in November 2004 with traffic reduced to one lane in each direction.
Construction on a new bridge to replace the one damaged by the hurricane began in early 2006. As the original bridge was left in place during construction, the new bridge was routed to the south and has a curved alignment near the beginning and end of each approach. Unlike the previous bridge, the new bridge features a total of six lanes (three eastbound and three westbound) as well as shoulders, modern barrier walls and lighting. The westbound portion of the bridge opened on December 12, 2007.
The bridge connects the northern part of Florida with the Gulf Coast and is used by an estimated 50,000 vehicles per day.
Read more about this topic: Escambia Bay Bridge
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“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)