San Mateo–Hayward Bridge, Toll bridge in San Francisco Bay, United States.
The San Mateo–Hayward Bridge carries State Route 92 across San Francisco Bay from Foster City to Hayward. Its western highrise span has an all-steel superstructure with an orthotropic deck over two parallel box girders, the first large-scale use of that deck type. The eastern approach runs on long concrete trestles, with paired piles standing in the water and steel lattice towers rising from the deck.
The original San Francisco Bay Toll Bridge opened on March 2, 1929, as a privately owned crossing and was then the longest bridge in the world; its center held five 300-foot truss spans with a vertical lift over the shipping channel. California bought it on September 12, 1951, for $6 million. Construction of the fixed high-level replacement began on July 17, 1961, and the new span opened to traffic in 1967 at a cost of $70 million, winning an ASCE civil engineering award in 1968.
The bridge carries State Route 92, whose western end reaches Half Moon Bay on the Pacific. Drivers use it to bypass delays on the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the Dumbarton Bridge. The 1929 lift span had a walkway and pole lights along its length; the lights were later kept only over the lift.
More than 90,000 vehicles cross daily, with toll collection on the western San Mateo side. The drive passes over flat water and offers open views of the bay and surrounding hills.
The 1967 span was the first large-scale use of an orthotropic steel deck, which cut weight and therefore seismic loading. The western high-rise section carries this deck over two parallel box girders. In 1968 the crossing received the ASCE Award for Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement and an American Institute of Steel Construction long-span prize.
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