The Bay Bridge

Spanning from downtown San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island and continuing on to Emeryville, the Bay Bridge opened in 1936 with six lanes of automobile traffic arranged three in each direction on its top deck. By 1962 the span had been reworked into ten lanes of motorized traffic, five inbound on the top deck and five outbound on the bottom, replacing the original arrangement in which the lower deck had carried trucks alongside two sets of Key System passenger train rails. The new east span, scheduled to open in 2013, adds a bike-and-pedestrian path required by Caltrans, giving photographers on foot or by bike a vantage point that earlier visitors could only reach by car.

The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge stretches roughly 4.5 miles in a double-deck configuration that carries both vehicles and bicycles. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake collapsed a 50-foot section of the eastern span's upper deck, prompting the construction of a self-anchored single-tower suspension replacement that opened to traffic on September 2, 2013. Photographers can capture both the original and replacement spans from shoreline vantage points on either side of the crossing.

The Bay Bridge Trail opened on the eastern span of the Bay Bridge on May 2, running seven days a week for bicycle and pedestrian access between Oakland and San Francisco. Gateway Park, designed to highlight the bay's industry, infrastructure, and ecology, is planned as new parkland and a distinct entryway to the East Bay. The trail occupies the eastern span, while the park is set on the East Bay side of the bridge.