Oakland Bridge Plum

There had been discussions of building a bridge between San Francisco and Oakland since the 1870s, but construction didn't move forward until President Herbert Hoover put his support behind the project. The San Francisco-Bay Bridge opened for traffic on November 12, 1936, six months before the Golden Gate Bridge. The San Francisco Chronicle report of that day described, "the greatest traffic jam in the history of San Francisco, the biggest and most good-natured crowd ever to try and walk the streets and guide their autos on them."

 

The Bay Bridge is an inescapable part of hundreds of thousands of journeys every day. This perspective, heading west on the upper deck of the eastern span — so recognizable to us now — is going away soon. When the new bridge opens, with its impressive safety and efficiency features, this bridge will be no more. It will go from being part of our local everyday, to becoming part of our hidden history.