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Essential Info About the Sunshine Skyway Bridge

One of America's largest bridges is just north of us.

By Susan Burns February 28, 2018 Published in the March 2018 issue of Sarasota Magazine

Sunshine skyway bridge on tampa bay   panoramio fqvlyv

Sunshine Skyway bridge

4.1 miles long, 95 feet wide

$1.75

One-way fare for the Bee Line Ferry, which transported cars and passengers from Pinellas Point to north Bradenton from 1924 until the Sunshine Skyway was built in 1954

$1.50

Current toll

179

Vehicle crashes in 2017 

0

Fatalities in 2017

58,000

Drivers who cross each day

54 

Vehicles in its largest traffic pileup (because of fog on Dec. 27, 1996)

35 people

Died when 1,260 feet of the bridge collapsed on May 9, 1980, when the phosphate carrier Summit Venture crashed into the south-bound span; 6 cars, 1 truck and a Greyhound bus fell from the span.

April 30, 1987

New Sunshine Skyway, dedicated to Bob Graham, the former Florida governor and U.S. Senator, opened. 

March 4, 2018

Date of the Skyway 10K, the first-ever run across the bridge, organized by and benefiting the Armed Forces Family Foundation. 

290 MPH 

force of winds the Skyway can withstand

4th

The Skyway’s rank as a place for U.S. suicides (it's first east of California). 301 people have jumped from the Skyway, 261 died, 40 survived, 106 were prevented from jumping.

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