San Francisco Bridges

Perched on the end of a promontory 40 mi. long, San Francisco has always been cut off from direct connection with the north by the Golden Gate, with the east by San Francisco Bay. Travelers in either direction have had the choice of circling far to the south around the bottom of the bay or crossing it on one of four ferry lines. Last week the end of this ancient inconvenience came closer when workmen hoisted a 50-ft. eyebar from a barge below, finally joined the two halves of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, linked San Francisco to the east for the first time. Simultaneously, the California Railroad Commission concluded long deliberations, decided to allow electric trains to cross the huge span.

First proposed by Leland Stanford in 1867, possibility of a bridge from San Francisco to Oakland was pooh-poohed for two generations. In 1929 President Hoover, whose Palo Alto home is in the Bay neighborhood, and California's Governor Clement Calhoun Young formed a bridge commission. The commission decided the bridge was physically possible. Reconstruction Finance Corp. made it financially so with a loan of $61,400,000. In July 1933, work began.

Now two-thirds complete, the Bay Bridge is a serpentine skeleton of steel more than four miles long. Two suspended spans, each almost a mile long and bigger than Manhattan's famed George Washington Bridge across the Hudson, reach from San Francisco to Yerba Buena ("Goat") Island, about midway across the Bay. At Yerba Buena the roadway dives through a rocky hill for 540 ft. From Yerba Buena to Oakland for two and a half miles stretch one huge cantilever bridge, five smaller spans, then a long trestle. It was the centre of the 11,400-ft. cantilever which was joined last week.

The Bay Bridge is to be opened to automobiles about next November, but probably not to trains until January 1938. The world's greatest over-water roadway has two decks, the top one for six automobile lanes, the bottom for three truck lanes and two train tracks to be used by Southern Pacific interurban trains and Key Route tramways. That does not mean that Pullman passengers from New York will now be able to ride through to San Francisco. Only lightweight suburban railway cars, no regular main-line trains, will be allowed to cross Bay Bridge. There are no pedestrian walks.

Also nearing completion is San Francisco's other great span, the Golden Gate Bridge which will link San Francisco to the north, cross the famed harbor entrance in one 6,450-ft. leap. Hung on two 746-ft. towers, 4.200 ft. apart, it will be the largest suspension bridge in the world when opened about March 1937, will have but a six-lane automobile deck with two pedestrian walks. Its cost, financed by local bond issues: $35,000,000.

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