Alameda County, California Bridges: Bay Farm Island Bridges (1)

June 2014 (37.74894 Degrees, -122.23628 Degrees) Bay Farm Island Bridges

At the south end of Alameda Island are the two Bay Farm Island Bridges. Bay Farm Island (shown in the foreground of the photo) is now a peninsula due to a landfill that connected the island to Oakland and the Oakland Airport. The island used to be home to asparagus fields and oyster beds that supplied food to the restaurants of San Francisco. 

The first bridge built on this site was made of timber (in 1854) with an oyster shell deck. The current Bay Farm Island Bridge (33 0086) carries State Route 61 across the Oakland Estuary. It was built in 1953 by the California Public Works Department (now Caltrans) who continues to own, operate, and maintain it.  It's a single leaf bascule bridge, similar to the previously studied Fruitvale Avenue Bridge. Its total length is 963 ft, which is mostly steel stringers on pile extensions. It was built by Duncason-Harleson and Stolte.

There is a parallel pedestrian and bike bridge (maintained by Alameda County) that connects the bike path on Bay Farm Island to the Fernside Blvd shoreline path. It is the only bascule bridge in the US exclusively for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Alameda County, California Bridges: Bay Farm Island Bridges (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.