Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Sunshine Skyway Bridge
Coordinates	27°37′30″N 82°39′31″W
Carries	I-275 / US 19 4 General purpose lanes
Crosses	Tampa Bay
Locale	South of St. Petersburg and north of Terra Ceia, Florida
Maintained by	Florida Department of Transportation
ID number	150189
Characteristics
Design	continuous pre-stressed concrete cable-stayed bridge
Total length	5.5 miles (8.9 km)
Width	94 feet (29 m)
Height	431 feet (131 m)
Longest span	1,200 feet (366 m)
Clearance above	193 feet (59 m)
Clearance below	175 feet (53 m)
History
Opened	1954 (original bridge, collapsed 1980) April 20, 1987 (new bridge)
Statistics
Daily traffic	50,500
Toll	$1 for passenger cars or $0.75 with SunPass

The Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge is a bridge spanning Tampa Bay, Florida, with a cable-stayed main span, and a length of 29,040 feet (exactly 5.5 miles or approximately 8.85 km). It is part of I-275 (SR 93) and US 19 (SR 55), connecting St. Petersburg in Pinellas County and Terra Ceia in Manatee County, Florida, passing through Hillsborough County waters. Construction of the current bridge began in 1982, and the completed bridge was dedicated on February 7, 1987. The new bridge cost $244 million to build, and was opened to traffic on April 20, 1987. It replaced an older bridge constructed in 1954 and partly destroyed in a collision in 1980.

It is constructed of nub steel and concrete. Twenty-one steel cables clad in nine-inch (229 mm) steel tubes along the center line of the bridge support the structure. It was designed by the Figg & Muller Engineering Group (who also designed the popular Seven Mile Bridge), and built by the American Bridge Company.

In 2005, an act of Florida Legislature officially named the current bridge the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge, after the Governor of Florida and then U.S. Senator who presided over its design and most of its construction. According to sources, he was inspired to suggest the current design by a visit to France, where he saw a similar cable-stayed bridge. The original bridge was dedicated to state engineer William E Dean, as noted on a plaque displayed at the south rest area of the bridge.

The Travel Channel rated the Sunshine Skyway #3 in its special on the "Top 10 Bridges" in the World. The bridge is considered the "flag bridge" of Florida.

Because of its height above the emerald-green Gulf waters, length of continuous travel, location in a warm-weather state, and modern architectural design, it is a popular spot for filming automobile commercials.

One of the major problems with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is corrosion of the steel in the precast concrete segments. Because the segments are hollow, workers were able to enter the bridge superstructure in 2003 and 2004 to reinforce the corroded sections of the bridge, ensuring its future safety. Another problem arose around 2005–2006 when several news bureaus uncovered peeling paint on the bridge's cables. These paint splotches and patches were a result of touch-ups that were performed over the years but began to show through over recent years. In 2008, FDOT began an overhaul including repainting the cables in their entirety (instead of touching up), rehabilitating the lighting system at the summit of the bridge, as well as repainting the concrete retaining walls.

The original Sunshine Skyway Bridge

The present bridge replaces a steel cantilever bridge of the same name. The original two-lane bridge built by the Virginia Bridge Company was completed in 1954, with a similar structure built parallel and to the west of it in 1969 to make it a four-lane bridge and bring it to Interstate standards. Opening of the newer span was delayed until 1971 for reinforcing of the south main pier, which had cracked due to insufficient supporting pile depth. The second span was used for all southbound traffic, while the original span was converted to carry northbound traffic.

The old bridge replaced a ferry from Point Pinellas to Piney Point. US 19 was extended from St. Petersburg to its current end north of Palmetto when the bridge opened. The engineer associated with its construction is Freeman Horton, who built the seawalls along the bay for Tampa and purchased Seagate from Powel Crosley following WWII.

The original Sunshine Skyway Bridge is featured in the old-time radio series "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar" in the episode "The Fancy Bridgework Matter" (11/22/1959) and in the original opening credits to the 1988 Superboy TV series which showed the hero flying over the damaged original span and then turning to view the new bridge under construction.

The remaining approaches to the old cantilever bridge remain in use as Skyway Fishing Pier State Park.

The original Sunshine Skyway Bridge was the site of a number of tragic events, including the collision of the US Coast Guard Cutter Blackthorn and outbound freighter Capricorn in 1980 which claimed 23 Coast Guardsmen's lives, and a structural collapse caused by a collision with the bridge support by the inbound freighter Summit Venture in 1980 which killed 35 people and ultimately ended the bridge spans' useful life.

The Blackthorn tragedy

On January 28th, 1980, the USCGC Blackthorn was outbound from Tampa Bay, having just completed a total refit, as the tanker Capricorn was inbound. Having just been overtaken by a brightly lit cruise ship, the Blackthorn had maneuvered into the center of the channel to allow the passenger ship to pass. As a consequence of the cruise ship's lights, the Blackthorn was unable to get a visual on the approaching Capricorn in the night's darkness. As the two ships approached, the Blackthorn gave two short whistles to signal its intention to pass to starboard as the Capricorn crowded the center of the channel. At some point, the Blackthorn, helmed by a junior officer, initiated evasive action but it was already too late. The two ships collided nearly head-on, with the anchor of the tanker imbedding itself in the hull plates of the cutter. At least 6 crewman of the Blackthorn were trapped by the mangled metal skin of the ship. As the ships' momentum carried each other along, the anchor line of the tanker grew taut and pulled the Blackthorn over, capsizing the smaller ship and resulting in the drowning deaths of 23 crew trapped on board and belowdecks, approximately 3/4 of a mile from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Following the accident, the Blackthorn was recovered and taken to drydock for postmortem analysis. Because it had been involved in a fatal accident, it was decided not to repair the vessel. She was stripped of her gear and had her mast and superstructure reduced. The hull was then towed offshore and intentionally sunk as an artificial reef.

The Summit Venture disaster

The southbound span (opened in 1971) of the original bridge was destroyed at 7:30 a.m. on May 9, 1980, when the freighter MV Summit Venture collided with a pier (support column) during a storm, sending over 1200 feet (366m) of the bridge plummeting into Tampa Bay. The collision caused ten cars and a Greyhound bus to fall 150 feet into the water (46 m), killing 40 people.

One man, Wesley MacIntire, survived the fall when his car landed on the deck of the Summit Venture before falling into the bay. He sued the company that owned the ship, and settled for $175,000 in 1984. For the remaining nine years of his life until he died in 1989, MacIntire was haunted by the fact that he was the only one to survive the fall from the collapsing bridge.

The collapsed original bridge on May 9, 1980 after the Summit Venture collision. Photo by St. Petersburg Times.

The pilot of the ship, John Lerro, was cleared of wrongdoing by both a state grand jury and a Coast Guard investigation.

Ironically, the south main pier (the one that required reinforcement before completion) withstood the ship strike without significant damage. It was the second pier to the south of it that was destroyed, a secondary pier that was not designed to withstand a large ship strike.

After the Summit Venture disaster, the northbound span carried one lane in either direction until the current bridge opened. Before the old bridge was demolished and hauled away in barges, MacIntire (the sole survivor of the collapse) was the last person permitted to drive over it. He was accompanied by his wife, and when they reached the top of the bridge, they dropped 40 white carnations into the water, one for each person who lost a life in the disaster. The main span of the northbound bridge was demolished in 1993 and the approaches for both old spans were made into the Skyway Fishing Pier State Park. These approaches sit 1/2 mile (0.8 km) to the south and west of the current bridge.

Gov. Graham's idea for the design of the current bridge won out over other proposals, including a tunnel (deemed impractical due to Florida's high water table) and a simple reconstruction of the broken section of the old bridge that would not have improved shipping conditions. The new bridge's main span is 50% wider than the old bridge. The piers of the main span and the approaches for 1/4 mile (0.4 km) in either direction are surrounded by large concrete barriers called "dolphins" that can protect the bridge piers from collisions with ships larger than the Summit Venture like tankers, container ships and cruise ships.

1993 demolition

In 1990 the Florida Department of Transportation awarded the winning bid to the Hardaway Company to demolish all steel and concrete sections of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. The scope of the project required that all underwater piles and piers, and surface roadway, girders, and beams be dismantled. Special care had to be taken in removing underwater bridge elements near the shipping channel. Additionally, the concrete material, deck sections, pilings and steel girders were to be collected in order to be placed offshore and along the remaining bridge approaches to become artificial reefs for the new planned state fishing park. The main bridge span had to be removed in one piece in order not to block the main shipping canal leading to the port of Tampa.

During the disassembly work of the bridges’ structural steel members, several difficult engineering challenges had to be resolved: the order of disassembly, a safe method for detonating charges on concrete and steel members in a publicly open and difficult to control area such as the Tampa Bay, and the development of a safe methodology for the removal in one piece of the bridge’s main span and concrete piers.

After some extensive research, the engineering team developed a 4 x 1: 16 ratio pulley system where each of the 4 corners of the span was connected to two 25 ton winches (bolted to the deck of the pavement). These winches controlled the descent of the main 360-foot (110 m), 608 ton span to a barge anchored 150 feet (46 m) below. As part of the solution, the engineering team developed a real time computerized, synchronized descent calculator and control program to help each of the two winch management teams ensure that all winches were synchronized at the same 30 feet (9.1 m) per minute descent rate. The solution was executed successfully in 2 1/2 hours despite adverse weather conditions.

Bridge suicides

According to compilations from various media reports, at least 130 people have committed suicide by jumping from the center span into the waters of Tampa Bay since the opening of the new bridge in 1987 and an estimated 10 others have tried, but survived. A Rottweiler named Shasta survived after either following or being carried over the edge by its owner, who died. Another 51 people ended their lives from the old Sunshine Skyway from 1954-1987. Several other missing persons are suspected of having jumped from the bridge, but their deaths could not be confirmed as no bodies were recovered.

In response to the bridge's popularity as method of demise for the depressed, the State of Florida installed six crisis hotline phones along the center span in 1999, and began 24-hour patrols. As of 2003, the call center received 18 calls from potential jumpers, all of whom survived, according to a St. Petersburg Times report. However, the total number of jumpers has not significantly declined since the introduction of these safeguards.

On April 27, 1997 a group of amateur daredevils, led by a bartender from Ft. Lauderdale and composed of a mix of male and female participants, did an unannounced guerrilla "pendulum swing" bungee jump off the bridge, where they were to go back and forth on a home-made bungee cord made of steel cable attached to the cast-off point. Arriving by stretch limousine, the group unexpectedly pulled over at the apex of the bridge, quickly rigged up their cable, tethered themselves to it with harnesses, and jumped over the edge. This stunt failed when the plastic sheathing on the steel cable, unable to handle the increase gravitational forces exerted on it by the initial pendulum swing, sheared off and allowed the connecting clamps to slide freely off the cable, plunging the jumpers 60 feet (18 m) into the water, leading to broken bones and neck injuries. The entire accident was caught on multiple video cameras that had been set up to record the feat.

When later interviewed for a television video program, the group's leader stated that all of the components were rated to handle the combined weight of the participants, and, at the time, he thought the assembly was safe. Later studies showed that his design had failed to take into account the increased g-load caused by the pendulum action of the jump itself, exceeding the ratings on the components and leading to catastrophic failure of the structural integrity of the bungee cable. Since the accident, no other groups have attempted to do a stunt jump from the bridge. This incident aired on Destroyed In Seconds on March 2, 2009.

In 2006 a feature film entitled Loren Cass was released which depicted a suicide jump off the Sunshine Skyway.

On October 12, 2009 a body was found in the trunk of a burning car. Witnesses saw a man carrying a gas can near the car. A Florida Highway Patrol trooper later saw the man jump from the bridge.

Stopping on the bridge for any non-emergency (including sightseeing) is prohibited, as are pedestrians and bicycles. Traffic on the bridge is remotely monitored by the Florida Highway Patrol, and a stopped or illegal vehicle or a pedestrian will elicit a police dispatch.

In popular culture

Sunshine Skyway Bridge has provided the setting for several films over the years, both credited and uncredited (e.g., The Punisher).

The song Skyway Avenue by local band We The Kings is named in reference to the bridge.

Gallery

Current Bridge

• 
  The bridge at twilight
• 
  View of bridge from Fort De Soto Park's East Beach
• 
  Sunshine Skyway Bridge from South Pier rest area
• 
  Driving on the bridge, near the peak
• 
  View of bridge heading south
• 
  As seen from the water of Tampa Bay
• View while driving across Sunshine Skyway Bridge
  View while driving across Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Old Bridge demolition

• 
  Before demolition
• 
  Before demolition
• 
  Demolition of concrete structure and slab - South access road
• 
  Demolition of concrete structure and slab - North access road
• 
  Demolition of steel and concrete girders. Truncated pier visible was the one struck by Summit Venture
• 
  Main bridge span secure on barge being towed away
• 
  Blasting concrete piers
• 
  Blasting steel truss
• 
  Blasting steel truss

Media coverage

• Editorial (1991-09-07). "The Skyway is falling!". ENR Engineering News Weekly. p. 13.
• Editorial (1991-09-13). "The Sunshine Skyway Bridge - a History of Ups and Downs". Dodge Construction Magazine. p. 5–6.
• Starnes, Sam (1991-09-25). "Original Skyway's main span removed". The Bradenton Herald. p. A3-A6.

See also

• Skyway Fishing Pier State Park
• Millau Viaduct, France, a later, similar design

External links

• Sunshine Skyway Bridge page at Interstate275Florida.com
• "The Day The Skyway Fell", A special of the St. Petersburg Times on May 7, 2000
• "Video archives: 1980 Sunshine Skyway accident", A special section from WTVT-TV
• Work projects on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge
• Audio recording of Mayday call made from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge Collapse, Tampa Bay, Florida, May 1980 (MP3 format) (updated URI, Jun 29 2005)
• Sunshine Skyway Bridge Demolition on YouTube

• Sunshine Skyway at Structurae
• Sunshine Skyway Bridge (1987) at Structurae