# Sunshine Skyway Bridge

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge (officially the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge) spans Lower Tampa Bay to connect Pinellas County (St. Petersburg, Florida) to Manatee County (Terra Ceia, Florida). After 4 years of construction, the original two-lane Sunshine Skyway Bridge was completed in 1954. A second two-lane span opened in 1971. After a partial accidental destruction in May 1980, traffic was diverted onto the surviving two-lane span for several years until the replacement Sunshine Skyway Bridge was completed in April 1987 after 5 years of construction. The old bridge was partially demolished and converted into two long fishing piers, which in 1994 were opened as the central feature of Skyway Fishing Pier State Park.

## Quotes

* The Travel Channel lists the Sunshine Skyway at no. 3 among the "The World's Top Ten Bridges," and residents of Florida's middle-western coast are rightfully proud of the majestic cable-stayed bridge, the fifth-largest such structure on the planet. Its bright yellow cables, set against the azure blue of the bay waters, or pink-and-orange Gulf sunsets, make for stunning landscape paintings and art photographs suitable for framing. It has been indeed become an iconic Florida image, these days emblazoned on everything from T-shirts and coffee mugs to expensive limited-edition porcelain collectors' plates. In 2012 the United States Postal Service put the Sunshine Skyway on a Priority Mail stamp, using a digital illustration by Chicago artist Dan Cosgrove.
** Bill DeYoung, "Preface". Skyway: The True Story of Tampa Bay's Signature Bridge and the Man Who Brought It Down. University Press of Florida. 2013. ISBN 0813047838.
* If you're putting that offshore fishing trip on the back burner due to rapidly rising fuel costs, you can still nail the big ones from the Sunshine Skyway Fishing Piers. The south side — 8,250 feet long, with 571 parking spaces — is the longest fishing pier in the world. ... Artificial reefs attract marine life. There are 65 of them along the south side and 18 running perpendicular to the north pier. The underwater structures owe their existence to a tragedy: the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse in May 1980, when a freighter crashed into a bridge support during a terrible storm (35 people died). Rubble from the collapsed bridge was placed on the sandy bottom to form the reefs.
** Patricia Pochurek and Jim Pochurek, Fishing the Sunshine Skyway: Cast a line from the longest fishing pier in the world. Creative Loafing Tampa Bay (May 7, 2008).
* ST. PETERSBURG — Sean Michael Davis was hauling his life across the Sunshine Skyway bridge that November afternoon, almost two years ago. He was moving to a new home in Palmetto, his box truck stuffed with furniture. He admired the way the sun hit the water and thought about what lay ahead. — He saw her on the second trip: a young woman in her 20s with shoulder-length dirty blond hair and green velour pants. She parked her silver car on the northbound crest. Davis, 41, slowed his truck. — He watched the next 10 seconds unfold from his southbound lane. He tried calling 911 but could not get through to the right dispatcher. — There would be no time for an intervention. — The young woman walked straight to the wall, hiked her leg over the berm and was gone. No hesitation. No intervention. Gone.
** Katie Sanders, (June 13, 2010)"Nothing romantic in taking the leap; A witness haunted by a jump from the Sunshine Skyway makes a film he hopes will deter others". The St. Petersburg Times (St. Petersburg, Florida).
* DeYoung's is the first nonfiction book about the iconic Sunshine Skyway Bridge and its abrupt demise at the bow of a 606-foot freighter run afoul in a sudden storm. The bridge was one of the longest structures in the world at the time the two segments of it were built (in 1954 and 1971). In 1954, it was the first bridge in the United States constructed entirely of prestressed concrete and steel rods. After it was destroyed, the bridge was reconstructed with a cable-sway design and now claims to be the fifth longest bridge of that design in the world, spanning nearly five miles of water. ... each day, an estimated 52,000 vehicles navigate its five-degree incline to cross from Manatee to Pinellas County.
** Heather J. Stone, (2018). "review of Skyway: The True Story of Tampa Bay’s Signature Bridge and the Man Who Brought It Down By Bill DeYoung". The Oral History Review 45 (2): 396–398.
* The original bridge was praised as one of the longest over-water spans in the Western hemisphere. A second structurally identical span was built to the southwest in 1971 in order to bring the bridge to interstate standards. This meant that two lanes could each be devoted to north-south traffic, as opposed to a single lane each way. This was done both to increase traffic fllow as well as to connect Interstate 275 which, in the early 1970s, was in the planning stages to reach across Pinellas county. (The interstate would run from the Howard Frankland bridge to the Skyway in 1978.) ... A freighter named the Summit Venture collided with the newer southern span of the bridge on May 9, 1980. Bad weather caused rough seas, and at 7:33 a.m., the ship collided with one of the main span’s support columns. More than 1,300 feet of the steel cantilever structure at the bridge’s apex fell onto the deck of the ship and Tampa Bay. About 35 people, 26 of them in a Greyhound bus bound for Miami, were killed in the accident. The only survivor’s car landed on the deck of the ship. To this day it remains the second deadliest bridge failure in the United States.
** Joey Vars, (September 15, 2014)"Bridge connects 60 years later". Crow's Nest, University of South Florida: pages 1 & 5. (quote from p. 5)

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Sunshine Skyway Bridge on Wikipedia
* (April 22, 2023)"Sunshine Skyway Bridge - St. Petersburg Florida". Florida 4K, YouTube.