Marin County, California Bridges: The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge across San Francisco Bay

December 2015 (37.9440, -122.4802) Richmond-San Rafael Bridge

This week we'll begin studying the bridges in Marin County, California, a scenic and affluent region just north of San Francisco.

Today's structure is the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, which carries Interstate 580 between Contra Costa and Marin Counties across San Francisco Bay. It's a double cantilever through truss with a sway back section between the two cantilever frames. I previously showed this bridge from Contra Costa County. Today we see it from Marin County just north of San Quentin State Prison.

The bridge has two decks, each carrying two lanes of traffic and a break-down lane. It was built in 1955 and was considered to be the ugly duckling of the Bay Toll Bridges. However, I like it's unusual appearance. Also, I prefer driving over this bridge in order to avoid all the traffic on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake the Bay Bridge was closed for a month for repairs while the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge remained in service. Both bridges were recently retrofit, but unlike the Bay Bridge, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge wasn't retrofit to remain in service following a large earthquake.

Marin County, California Bridges: The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge across San Francisco Bay by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.