History
The first sprawling trestle crossing from West Islip to Captree Island was completed in 1951. The structure is 3,206.2 metres (2.0 mi) in length with a middle clearance for boats of 18.2 metres (59.7 ft). Originally, one lane was for southbound traffic and the other for northbound traffic. In 1967, a new span was built next to the original bridge, carrying three lanes of northbound traffic. The original bridge was reconfigured to carry southbound traffic.
The Fire Island Inlet span was completed in 1964 and by 1985 a dual span was supposed to be built in order to alleviate traffic, but it was never done. When first proposed in 1938, the span was to be a vertical-lift span with a design similar to that of the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge. Later, the design of the Fire Island Bridge was changed to conform with that of the Great South Bay span, a 600-foot (180 m) steel-arch span with a 60-foot (18 m) clearance.
Read more about this topic: Robert Moses Causeway
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