Fred Hartman Bridge

Fred Hartman Bridge
Official name	Fred Hartman Bridge
Carries	8 lanes of SH 146
Crosses	Houston Ship Channel
Locale	Harris County, south of Baytown, Texas and north of La Porte, Texas
Maintained by	Texas Department of Transportation
Design	fan arranged cable-stayed bridge
Material	cables: polymer-wrapped twisted steel wire bundles pylons: reinforced concrete main deck: reinforced concrete approach deck: precast prestressed concrete
Total length	4.185 kilometres (2.60 mi)
Width	47 metres (154 ft)
Height	133 metres (436 ft) (pylon)
Longest span	381 meters (1,250 feet)
Vertical clearance	80.6 meters (262 feet)
Clearance below	54.8 meters (178 feet)
Construction begin	1986
Construction end	1995
Opened	September 27, 1995 (September 27, 1995)
Toll	none
Coordinates	29.70347°N 95.01742°W / 29.70347; -95.01742

The Fred Hartman Bridge or Baytown Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge in the U.S. state of Texas, spanning the Houston Ship Channel. The bridge carries 2.6 miles (4 km) of State Highway 146, between the cities of Baytown, Texas and La Porte, Texas (east of Houston).

The bridge, named for Fred Hartman (1908–1991), the editor and publisher of the Baytown Sun from 1950 to 1974, is the longest cable-stayed bridge in Texas, and one of only three such bridges in the state, the others being the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Orange County, Texas and the Bluff Dale Suspension Bridge in Erath County Texas. It was the seventy-sixth largest bridge in the world from 1995 to 2003, and is now the seventy-seventh largest bridge. The construction cost of the bridge was $117.5 million.

Fred Hartman Bridge

The bridge replaced the Baytown Tunnel (of depth clearance 40 feet or 12.2 m). The tunnel had to be removed when the Houston Ship Channel was deepened to 45 feet (13.7 m), with a minimum 530 feet (161.5 m) bottom width, to accommodate larger ships. The last section of the Baytown Tunnel was removed from the Houston Ship Channel on September 14, 1999, with removal of the tunnel being the responsibility of the Texas Department of Transportation.

The bridge has had trouble in the past, when water streaming down the cables in light rain changed the wind profile of the cables, causing unexpected vibrations.