The Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge, often referred to as the Sunshine Skyway Bridge or the Sunshine Skyway, consists of a pair of long beam bridges with a central cable-stayed bridge that spans Lower Tampa Bay to connect St. Petersburg, Florida, to Terra Ceia. The current Sunshine Skyway opened in 1987 and is the second bridge of that name on the site. It was designed by the Figg & Muller Engineering Group and built by the American Bridge Company. The bridge is considered the flagship bridge of Florida and serves as a gateway to Tampa Bay. The four-lane bridge carries Interstate 275 and U.S. Route 19, passing through Pinellas County, Hillsborough County and Manatee County. It is a toll road, with a $1.75 toll assessed on two-axle vehicles traveling in either direction and collected via cash or the state's SunPass system as a reduced toll of $1.16.
The original Sunshine Skyway was a two-lane beam bridge with a central truss bridge built directly to the west of the current structure. It was completed in 1954, and a second span was added in 1971.
The original Skyway was the site of two major maritime disasters over a four-month period, the second of which resulted in the bridge's partial destruction and eventual replacement. On the night of January 28, 1980, the United States Coast Guard cutter collided with the tanker Capricorn just west of the bridge, resulting in the sinking of the cutter with the loss of 23 crew members in the worst peacetime disaster in the history of the US Coast Guard. On the morning of May 9, 1980, the freighter MV Summit Venture collided with a support pier near the center of the bridge during a sudden squall, resulting in the catastrophic failure of the southbound roadway and the deaths of 35 people when several vehicles (including a Greyhound Bus) plunged into Tampa Bay. Within a few years, the damaged span was partially demolished, the surviving span was partially demolished and converted into a long fishing pier, and the modern Sunshine Skyway was built. The current bridge incorporates numerous safety features designed to protect the structure from ship collisions, as it spans one of the busiest shipping lanes in the United States.
History
Precursors and proposals
In 1924, J.G. "Jim" Foley, a realtor, and his partner Charles R. Carter joined with James E. Bussey, an attorney, to create the Bee Line Ferry Company. The service started on March 7, 1927, and originally had two ferries: Fred D. Doty and the City of Wilmington (which was later renamed Pinellas). The ferry crossed from the end of Bay Vista Park in St. Petersburg and went to Piney Point on the other side of the bay.
A physiotherapist from St. Petersburg named Herman Simmonds proposed building a "high-level suspension bridge" in 1926. Sometime during 1927, Simmonds received congressional approval and a permit from the US War Department to build a bridge, but efforts were put on hold due to the Great Depression.
The Florida Legislature gave the Bee Line Ferry a franchise for 50 years to operate in 1929. Another unsuccessful proposal to build a crossing occurred in 1929 when a bill was introduced into the state legislature to build a tunnel crossing lower Tampa Bay running from Pinellas Point to Piney Point, with the tunnel itself being buried under the bay and going for a length of . This proposal was not successful in the end, though, with unspecified "Tampa officials" arguing that any bridge or tunnel would be a navigational hazard during periods of wartime.
The ferry service continued to expand, with the Fred D. Doty replaced by another ferry called the Manatee in 1932. A fourth vessel, the Sarasota, was bought and put into service in 1937. Ferries departed every 30 minutes between 7:30am and 9:00pm during the winter. In the summer, they departed every 45 minutes. The ferry company ceased operating when the federal government confiscated the boats as they needed them for the World War II war effort in 1942.
At close to the same time when the proposal from Simmonds ended, another proposal originating from Louis E. Saupe emerged. Saupe, the head of the West Coast Bridge and Tunnel Co., wanted a combination of a causeway and a tunnel. The causeway portion would go from Maximo Point to Mullet Key, while the tunnel portion would run for less than before transitioning to a causeway until reaching Terra Ceia. Pinellas County commissioners liked the idea and agreed to it. In 1939, they pushed state officials to approve it, and the state legislature agreed to back it. Since the bridge would cross into part of Hillsborough County, which was not included in the bill for the bridge, it was declared unconstitutional.