November 12, 1936: The Bay Bridge Opens

The western span

November 12, 1936: The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens to automobile, bus and commuter rail traffic.

It often gets short shrift in comparison to the more famous Golden Gate Bridge. But the Bay Bridge (for simplicity's sake, I'm going to call it that from here on out) not only came first, but is longer (4.4 miles to 1.7), and carries more cars every day (260,000 to 110,000).

There are 2 sections. The western section, a suspension bridge, connects downtown San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island. It has 2 decks, with westbound (SF) traffic on the upper level and eastbound (Oakland) traffic on the lower level. The eastern section connects Yerba Buena Island to Oakland, and marks the western end of the transcontinental Interstate 80.

The original eastern span

The original eastern section was a cantilever bridge, also double-decked. In 1989, the Loma Prieta Earthquake not only interrupted the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics, but it caused a part of the eastern section's upper deck to collapse onto the lower deck. On the official World Series highlight film, Giants catcher Terry Kennedy can be seen telling his teammates, "The Bay Bridge collapsed!" as it turned out, it was not the entire bridge, just one section; but people did die as a result.

The immediate fix took a month. But it was decided to replace the eastern section with a more quake-safe structure. On September 2, 2013, the new eastern section opened, a suspension bridge that took both directions of traffic on one level, then the widest bridge in the world.

The Key System ended commuter rail service in 1958, and bus service when it went out of business in 1960. Thus, the bridge has been all-car (and truck, and bus) since then. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system began service between the cities in 1972, but uses an underwater tunnel, not the Bay Bridge.

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November 12, 1936 was a Thursday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't yet been founded. Two games were played in the NHL. The New York Americans and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a 0-0 tie at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Montreal Maroons, 2-1 at the Montreal Forum.