History
The original structure was built as a steel girder bridge with concrete piers. The steel was provided from a plant operated by Bethlehem Steel, directly adjacent to the turnpike in Steelton, Pennsylvania. It was opened to traffic in 1950.
On November 16, 2004, the Turnpike Commission let a contract for a bridge to replace the 1950 span. Two new 3-lane segmental, concrete signature spans were constructed just upriver from the old 4 lane span. The new span was the first of its type built in Pennsylvania at a cost of nearly $100 million . The westbound span opened on 17 May 2007, and the eastbound span was opened on 17 June 2007. The new roadway and bridges opened to normal traffic flow in the summer of 2008. Destruction of the old span was planned to begin in July 2007.
Read more about this topic: Susquehanna River Bridge
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—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)