The Gerald Desmond Bridge is a through arch bridge that carries four lanes of Ocean Boulevard from Interstate 710 in Long Beach, California, west across the Cerritos Channel to Terminal Island. The bridge is named after Gerald Desmond, a prominent civic leader and a former city attorney for the City of Long Beach.
The bridge was designed by Moffatt & Nichol Engineers and was constructed by Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Intended to replace a pontoon bridge which had been in use since World War Two, ground-breaking for the construction of the new bridge occurred on October 19, 1965, and it was completed in 1968. It has a 410-foot-long (120 m) suspended main span and a 155-foot (47 m) vertical clearance over the Cerritos Channel, and connects Terminal Island on its east side to downtown Long Beach.
[edit] Replacement
This bridge has developed various maintenance problems and the Port of Long Beach has suggested it would be more economical to replace the bridge with a new cable-stayed bridge with 200 feet (61 m) of vertical clearance. The new bridge will allow access to the port for even the tallest container ships and will be the first long-span cable-stayed bridge in California. In order for the bridge to be so tall, long approaches will be required to allow heavy trucks to cross the structure. A joint venture of Parsons Transportation Group and HNTB performed preliminary engineering for the main span and the approaches. The project is estimated to cost $800 million and is scheduled for completion by 2016. The project is to be completed as a design-build in contrast to the traditional design-bid-build used typically in infrastructure improvement. The replacement bridge was approved in 2010.[1]
[edit] Popular culture
The bridge had a featured role in the film Head, featuring rock group The Monkees, released in 1968. The first scene of the film features the actual dedication ceremony for the bridge, which is interrupted by the group members running into the middle of the ceremony and jumping off the bridge.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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I-710
