Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Sunshine Skyway Bridge
Coordinates	27°37′30″N 82°39′31″W / 27.62500°N 82.65861°W / 27.62500; -82.65861
Carries	4 lanes of I-275 / US 19
Crosses	Tampa Bay
Locale	South of St. Petersburg and north of Terra Ceia, Florida
Official name	Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge
Other name(s)	The Skyway
Named for	Bob Graham
Maintained by	Florida Department of Transportation
ID number	150189
Characteristics
Design	Cable-stayed
Total length	4.14 mi (6.7 km)
Width	94 ft (29 m)
Height	430 ft (131 m)[1]
Longest span	1,200 ft (366 m)
Clearance below	181 ft (55 m)[2]
No. of lanes	4
History
Engineering design by	Figg & Muller Engineering Group
Constructed by	American Bridge Company
Construction start	June 1982[3]
Construction cost	$244 million (equivalent to $652 million in 2023 dollars)
Opened	April 20, 1987; 37 years ago (1987-04-20)
Replaces	Sunshine Skyway Bridge
Statistics
Daily traffic	65,215 (2023)[4]
Toll	$1.75 for passenger cars or $1.16 with SunPass
Location

Sunshine Skyway Bridge (former)
Coordinates	27°37′30″N 82°39′31″W / 27.625°N 82.6586°W / 27.625; -82.6586
Carried	4 lanes of US 19 (as two separate 2-lane bridges, one for each direction)
Characteristics
Design	Cantilever bridge
Material	Steel
Trough construction	Steel
Pier construction	Reinforced concrete
History
Engineering design by	Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Hall and MacDonald[5]
Constructed by	Virginia Bridge Company[6]
Construction start	October 19, 1950[7] (original bridge, later converted to northbound only traffic, reverted to two way traffic in 1980) 1967 (southbound span)
Construction end	1954 (northbound span) 1971 (southbound span)
Construction cost	$22,250,000 (original bridge)[8]
Opened	September 6, 1954; 70 years ago (1954-09-06) (original bridge)
Inaugurated	September 6, 1954 (1954-09-06)
Collapsed	May 9, 1980; 44 years ago (1980-05-09) (southbound)
Closed	April 20, 1987; 37 years ago (1987-04-20) (northbound original span, closed as two way)
Replaced	Bee Line Ferry
Replaced by	Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, officially referred to as the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge, is a pair of long beam bridges with a central tall cable-stayed bridge. It spans Lower Tampa Bay to connect Pinellas County (St. Petersburg, Florida) to Manatee County (Terra Ceia, Florida). The current Sunshine Skyway opened in 1987 and is the second bridge of that name on the site. It was designed by the Figg & Muller Engineering Group and built by the American Bridge Company.^[9] The bridge is considered the flagship bridge of Florida and serves as a gateway to Tampa Bay.^[10] The four-lane bridge carries Interstate 275 and U.S. Route 19, passing through Pinellas County, Hillsborough County and Manatee County. It is a toll bridge, with a toll assessed on two-axle vehicles traveling in either direction at a rate of $1.75 cash or $1.16 with the state's SunPass system.^[11]

The original Sunshine Skyway was a two-lane beam bridge with a central truss bridge built directly to the west of the current structure. It was completed in 1954, and a second two-lane span opened in 1971.^[12] The original bridge was the site of two major maritime disasters in 1980, the second of which resulted in its partial destruction. The first incident was on the night of January 28, when the United States Coast Guard cutter Blackthorn collided with the tanker Capricorn in the western approach to the bridge, resulting in the sinking of the cutter with the loss of 23 crew members in the worst peacetime disaster in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard. The second incident came on the morning of May 9, 1980, when the freighter MV Summit Venture collided with a support pier near the center of the bridge during a sudden squall, resulting in the catastrophic failure of the southbound roadway and the deaths of 35 people when several vehicles, including a Greyhound bus, plunged into Tampa Bay.^[13] Traffic was diverted onto the surviving two-lane span for several years until the replacement Skyway Bridge was completed, at which time the old bridge was partially demolished and converted into two^[14] long fishing piers.

The channel beneath the main span of the Skyway allows access to Port Tampa Bay, Port Tampa, the Port of St. Petersburg, and SeaPort Manatee, making it one of the busiest shipping lanes in the United States. Owing to the 1980 disaster, the current bridge incorporates numerous safety features to protect the structure from ship collisions.