50th Anniversary Nears : Oakland Bay Bridge Cast in Shadow of Its Cousin

An estimated 1,160 people chose the romantic Golden Gate Bridge as a site from which to jump to their death.

By contrast, only 181 picked the slightly older and much longer San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to end it all.

These statistics may indicate how much the more glamorous Golden Gate has overwhelmed one of the world’s great bridges.

Probably anywhere else on earth, the majestic Bay Bridge, soaring high over the bay, touching down on Yerba Buena Island, and flying off again to Oakland, would be the No. 1 selling post card. Not in San Francisco, where tourists buy pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge instead.

So perhaps it is not surprising that when the bridge so ignored faces its 50th birthday, there’s not much talk about a party.

World-Class Span

Yet the eight-mile Bay Bridge was an engineering marvel at its birth and the historic structure remains a span of world class.

Until construction of the two San Francisco bridges, the only transportation over the water to San Francisco was provided by scores of ferry boats. By land, the trip was 80 miles.

As long ago as the mid-19th Century, the possibility of a bay bridge was discussed in the state Legislature.

In 1869, the Emperor Norton, a San Francisco eccentric whose full-time cavorting in imperial regalia kept the citizenry amused, ordered his subjects to begin construction of the bay bridge “whereof fail not under pain of death.”

In Norton’s day irrepressible San Franciscans on the streets saluted the emperor warmly, and currently a petition being circulated asks that the bridge’s prosaic name be changed to the “Emperor Norton Bridge.”

Talk Gets Serious

After World War I, talk of building the bridge became serious, despite opposition from the War Department which didn’t want anything to stand in the way of Navy ships.

The city of San Francisco was presented with 35 proposals by private companies seeking to construct and operate a privately owned span, but city government decided construction would be public.

Design work was completed in 1932, just when the bond market collapsed, and the bridge was financed by contracts from the new Reconstruction Finance Corp. to a specially created state toll bridge authority.

At a then-staggering cost of $73 million and 24 workers’ lives, the bridge was completed in 3 1/2 years.

8.5 Miles Long

Its total length is 8.5 miles, four over water. The tallest tower is equal to a 50-story building and one of the piers holding the span sinks 242 feet below the surface to reach bedrock.

To allow for passing ships, which these days can include the aircraft carrier Enterprise, vertical clearance ranges up to 227 feet.

When the bridge opened, the toll was a hefty 65 cents, plus a nickel for each auto passenger over four, a price that was still cheaper than ferry fees.

Eventually, the toll dropped to a quarter. Although the bonds which financed the bridge construction were paid off in 1955, tolls were continued to help pay for other area bridges, and the current cost is 75 cents.

Treasure Island Formed

Construction of the span made possible the filling in of shoals off Yerba Buena to make Treasure Island, site of the 1939-40 World’s Fair and now a Navy base.

In its history, few bad things happened. A couple of times huge cranes smashed against the highway deck when barge operators overlooked high tides, and a couple of times small airplanes smashed into a tower.

The bridge, which has 10 lanes on two decks, now handles 236,000 autos each weekday, and almost as many on weekend days.

However, for safety reasons the engineers deliberately obscured motorists’ views of one of the world’s most beautiful bays with side railings that are solid, in contrast with the Golden Gate. No pedestrians are allowed on a 30-inch walkway, a factor in the low suicide rate.

BART Replaces Train

For a couple of decades an interurban train ran on the lower deck but was abandoned and later replaced with the underwater Bay Area Rapid Transit.

When the bridge opened Nov. 12, 1936, San Francisco went “hog wild.” The celebration lasted three days.

For the forthcoming 50th anniversary of the opening, Robert W. Halligan, spokesman for the state agency running the bridge, says, “We hope to have a nice observance but we are short of money.”

The party planning has not yet begun, but Halligan said that to honor the governor at the time of construction, the bridge’s name may be formally changed to the “Gov. James Rolph Jr. Bridge.”

A resolution to that effect was adopted by toll bridge authority directors in the 1930s but never was put into effect, partly because of the opposition of the politically powerful Knowland family.

The Knowlands, who published a newspaper in Oakland and who later produced a governor and senator, wanted the name of Oakland in the bridge title to promote their growing city.