Vincent Thomas Bridge

About Vincent Thomas Bridge

The Vincent Thomas Bridge is a 1,500-foot (460 m) long suspension bridge crossing the Los Angeles Harbor in the U.S. state of California, linking San Pedro, Los Angeles, with Terminal Island. The bridge is signed as part of State Route 47. It is named for California Assemblyman Vincent Thomas of San Pedro.

Throughout the bridge's construction and in the early years after its opening, it was derided as a "bridge to nowhere." In the 1970s, however, its importance drastically increased as the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach displaced those of the San Francisco Bay Area as the principal port on the West Coast. Today, the Vincent Thomas Bridge carries a considerable volume of truck traffic from the southernmost slips of the Port of Los Angeles, in San Pedro, onto the Terminal Island Freeway and eventually to the southern end of the Long Beach Freeway; from there, freight goes from the port complex to the rail yards of East Los Angeles and the Inland Empire.

When the bridge opened in 1963, the toll was 25 cents in each direction. In 1983, the toll increased to 50 cents for westbound traffic but became free for eastbound traffic. By 2000, the Vincent Thomas Bridge was one of only two toll bridges remaining in Southern California (the other being the San Diego-Coronado Bridge in San Diego), during which year tolls on the Vincent Thomas Bridge were removed completely. After the San Diego-Coronado Bridge stopped collecting tolls in 2002, the California Department of Transportation was able to devolve authority over toll bridges to the Bay Area Toll Authority in June 2005.