How many miles is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge?

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge, often known as the Bay Bridge in Maryland, is a prominent dual-span bridge in the United States. It connects the state’s rural Eastern Shore region with the urban Western Shore, between Stevensville and Annapolis, and spans the Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is 4.35 mi (7.00 km) eastbound and 4.33 mi (6.97 km) westbound one of the longest overwater structures in the world. The Bay Bridge is two side-by-side bridges with two lanes of traffic on each span

It has a capacity of 1,500 vehicles per lane, per hour. Annual traffic on the bridge is estimated to exceed 27 million vehicles.

The first bridge’s eastbound span opened in July 1952 and the second bridge’s westbound span opened in June 1973. The two spans are roughly the same height, with the original span measuring 354 feet (108 m) and the current span at 379 feet (116 m).

The bridge is formally known as the Gov. William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bridge in honour of William Preston Lane Jr., Maryland’s 52nd Governor, who began construction in the late 1940s after decades of political hesitation and public debate.