Gerald Desmond Bridge

Gerald Desmond Bridge
Coordinates
Carries	4 lanes of I-710
Crosses	Cerritos Channel
Locale	Terminal Island and Long Beach, California
Characteristics
Design	Through arch bridge
Total length	5,134 feet (1,565 m)
Longest span	410-foot (120 m)
Clearance below	155 feet (47 m)
History
Construction begin	October 19, 1965
Construction cost	$615 million
Opened	1968
Closed	around 2018

Gerald Desmond Bridge (new bridge)
Design of the replacement bridge
Coordinates
Carries	6 lanes of I-710
Crosses	Cerritos Channel
Locale	Terminal Island and Long Beach, California
Characteristics
Design	Cable-stayed bridge
Total length	5,134 feet (1,565 m)
Longest span	410-foot (120 m)
Clearance below	205 feet (62 m)
History
Construction begin	2013
Construction cost	$1.2 billion
Opened	around late 2017/early 2018

The Gerald Desmond Bridge is a through arch bridge that carries four lanes of Ocean Boulevard from Interstate 710 in Long Beach, California, west across the Cerritos Channel to Terminal Island. The bridge is named after Gerald Desmond, a prominent civic leader and a former city attorney for the City of Long Beach.

History

The bridge was designed by Moffatt & Nichol Engineers and was constructed by Bethlehem Steel. Intended to replace a pontoon bridge that had been in use since World War II, and exactly one year after Gerald's death, ground-breaking for the construction of the new bridge occurred on October 19, 1965, and it was completed in 1968. It has a 410-foot-long (120 m) suspended main span and a 155-foot (47 m) vertical clearance over the Cerritos Channel and connects Terminal Island on its east side to downtown Long Beach.

Replacement

File:Gerald Desmond Bridge (old) from north looking southwest.jpg

On the left side of the image, netting is faintly visible on the bottom of the bridge. The netting is in place to catch chunks of decaying concrete that occasionally fall from the structure.

This bridge has developed maintenance problems, and the Port of Long Beach has suggested it would be more economical to replace the bridge with a cable-stayed bridge with 205 feet (62 m) of vertical clearance. The new bridge will allow access to the port for the tallest container ships, and will be the first long-span cable-stayed bridge in California. For the bridge to be so tall, long approaches will be required to allow trucks to cross. A joint venture of Parsons Transportation Group and HNTB performed preliminary engineering for the main span and the approaches.

The replacement bridge was approved in 2010. In 2012, the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners approved Port of Long Beach staff’s recommendation that the “best value” design-build proposal to replace the Gerald Desmond Bridge was submitted by the joint venture team of Shimmick Construction Company Inc., FCC Construction S.A. and Impregilo S.p.A. Major participants in the joint venture include Shimmick Construction Company Inc., FCC Construction S.A., Impregilo S.p.A., Arup North America Ltd. and Biggs Cardosa Associates Inc. The project was originally estimated to cost $800 million, currently slated for $1.5 billion and is scheduled for completion by 2018. The project is to be completed as a design-build in contrast to the traditional design-bid-build used typically in infrastructure improvement. As of 2015, construction on the replacement bridge is still underway.

In March 2012, the 155-foot (47 m) vertical clearance of the bridge proved insufficient to allow passage of the 12,562 TEU MSC Fabiola, the largest container ship ever to enter the Port of Long Beach. The height restriction prevented the ship from docking at the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) dock; it docked at the Hanjin terminal instead.

Popular culture

The bridge had a featured role in the film Head, featuring rock group The Monkees, released in 1968. The first scene of the film features the actual dedication ceremony for the bridge, which is interrupted by the Monkees running into the middle of the ceremony and Micky Dolenz jumping off the bridge. At the conclusion of the film the Monkees return to the bridge and each of them jumps from it. A bridge based on this one is also featured in the video game Grand Theft Auto V. It, however, is unnamed.

File:Gerald Desmond Bridge (old) from north looking south-southeast crop.jpg

View of the old Gerald Desmond Bridge from the north, looking south-southeast. Netting is visible on the bottom of the bridge, serving to catch chunks of decaying concrete that occasionally fall from the structure.

External links

• Gerald Desmond Bridge at Structurae
• New GD Bridge project page
• Port Of Long Beach GD bridge replacement page
• GD bridge replacement project at shimmick.com (contractor)