Above is a computerized rendering of what could relieve today’s traffic snarl as hundreds of Marinites head home from San Francisco. Check it out. It’s a proposed six-lane expansion of the Richardson Bay Bridge. Do you like it? Well, don’t believe it!
This photo was actually taken in 1956 when, according to Barry Spitz’s Marin, A History, “A wider, steel and concrete structure was being built just to the east of the original bridge, which was built of redwood timbers back in 1931.” Spitz cites the original bridge as being “the longest ever constructed of redwood and costing $326,000 which included a drawbridge that was only raised six times.” Then in 1959, with the six-lane Richardson Bay Bridge completed, the two decades old Golden Gate Bridge was continuing to pour traffic into Marin County. Now — 65 years later — with the massive six-lane bridge still firmly in place and Marin’s population having grown from 147,200 to 265,320 (an 80 percent population increase), is the Richardson Bay Bridge due for yet another expansion?
