Crescent City Connection

The Crescent City Connection (CCC), formerly the Greater New Orleans Bridge (GNO), is a pair of cantilever bridges that carry U.S. Highway 90 Business (US 90 Bus.) over the Mississippi River in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. They are tied as the fifth-longest cantilever bridges in the world. Each span carries four general-use automobile lanes; additionally the westbound span has two reversible HOV lanes across the river.

It is the farthest downstream bridge on the Mississippi River. It is also the widest and most heavily traveled bridge on the lower Mississippi; the only other comparable bridges on the Mississippi are in the St. Louis area, those being the Poplar Street Bridge, the Jefferson Barracks Bridge, and the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge.

History

What later became known as the Crescent City Connection was the second bridge to span the Mississippi south of Baton Rouge, the first being the Huey P. Long Bridge, a few miles upriver from the city, and it is the first bridge across the river in Orleans Parish, coterminous with the city of New Orleans.

The Mississippi River Bridge Authority, known since 1989 as the Crescent City Connection Division (CCCD), began construction of the first span in November 1954, which opened in April 1958 as the Greater New Orleans Bridge. At its opening, the bridge was the longest cantilever bridge in the world although in terms of main span length, it was third, after the Forth Bridge and the Quebec Bridge. It carried two lanes of traffic in each direction and spurred growth in the suburban area known as the West Bank (named for its location on the western bank of the river although it is geographically southeast of New Orleans). Construction of the second span began in March 1981. Despite promises that it would be ready for the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition, it did not open to traffic until September 1988. The second span was originally designated as the Greater New Orleans Bridge No. 2. Both bridges were designed by Modjeski & Masters, Inc. As soon as the new span was opened, the old span was temporarily closed in phases to replace the asphalt-on-steel deck with concrete. All the exits and entrances to the bridge were replaced as well.

After the completion of the second span, a public contest was held in 1989 to rename the bridges, which was won by Jennifer Grodsky, of St. Clement of Rome School in Metairie, Louisiana, on March 17. The name was selected over the second-place finisher, the Greater New Orleans Superspan, as the name for the spans. Other names voted on for the naming of the spans included: the Crescent City Twins, the Delta Twins, the Crescent City Bridge, the New Orleans Metro Span, the Crescent City Gateway, the Crescent City Twin Span, the Crescent City River Bridge, The Big Easy and the Li'l Easy, the Jazz City Bridge, the Big East Twin Spans, The Pelican Bridge, the Fleur-de-Lis, the Greater Mississippi River Bridge, the Unity Bridge, the Mississippi River Twins, The Friendship Connection, The Pelican Pride, the Riverview Bridge, the Creole Crossing, the Jazz Gate Bridge, the Greater New Orleans Twin Bridges, and the Crescent Bend Bridge.

Following this contest, the Louisiana Legislature officially designated the bridges as the Crescent City Connection. (The bridge is commonly known among local Vietnamese Americans as , the "Pelican Bridge", due to blue signs at either end that feature a pelican from the state flag.) Beginning in 1989, it was maintained and policed as a toll bridge by the CCCD, a special division of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, although a 2013 vote removed the tolls, and the crossing is now overseen by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety. This separate state police agency used elsewhere in the state, is required because of the high traffic volume and the fact that the two spans briefly cross into Jefferson Parish and the city of Gretna, Louisiana. Since renaming of the twin bridges, some local residents refer to the bridge as "The GNO", in spite of the name change from decades past. Most people refer to it as the "CCC", whereas the proper name of "Crescent City Connection" is used mainly in the media.

Due to the Mississippi River's winding course through the New Orleans area (the river is flowing north at the place where the two bridges cross), the bridge contains two wrong-way concurrencies, with the ''east''bound span carrying Business US 90 ''West'', while the ''west''bound span carries Business US 90 ''East''. The Crescent City Connection was the fifth most traveled toll bridge in the United States in 2006, with annual traffic exceeding 63 million vehicles.

The bridge is the centerpiece of the Crescent Connection Road Race (CCRR) or Bridge Race as it is locally known, an annual event held on the first Saturday in September following Labor Day. The bridge remains open to vehicular traffic during the race, which only uses the two HOV lanes. The CCRR was originally started as a fundraiser for the bridge's decorative lights. These lights line the top profile lines of both bridges; 64 lights along each string for a total 256 lights.

Hurricane Katrina

As Hurricane Katrina approached the city in August 2005, the CCCD halted toll collections on August 26 to aid in speed of evacuation of the Metro area. Two overhead signs were blown down on the older span, but no other damage occurred to either bridge. After the storm hit on August 29, 2005, much of the east bank of New Orleans flooded severely (see Effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans). With all other major and minor highways out of town flooded in both directions, the CCC was the only open highway into or out of the east bank of Orleans Parish