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Golden Gate Bridge Fast Facts

By CNN

(CNN) — Here’s a look at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It is a suspension bridge that crosses the Golden Gate, a strait that leads to the San Francisco Bay.

Characteristics

The bridge is 8,981 feet long (1.7 miles) and contains about 83,000 tons of steel.

The total weight of the bridge is 887,000 tons.

There are two towers that hold up the two steel cables anchoring the bridge. Also, there are approximately 80,000 miles of wire inside each of the two steel cables.

The towers stand 746 feet above the water and 500 feet above street level. They weigh 44,000 tons each and are 4,200 feet apart from each other.

The bridge is 90 feet wide. There are six driving lanes and two sidewalks. The width of the driving lanes is 62 feet between curbs and the sidewalks are 10 feet each. Street level is about 220 feet above the water.

The color is called “International Orange.”

The bridge has an advanced security system with motion detectors and security cameras.

Timeline

1848 – Captain John C. Fremont names the cleft in the Coastal Mountain Range opening onto San Francisco Bay the Golden Gate. The bridge derives its name from the land feature and not its color.

1916 – James H. Wilkins comes up with the idea to connect northern California to the San Francisco peninsula.

December 1924 – The United States War Department, the government entity responsible for the entire area surrounding the strait, approves the project.

1928 – The Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District is formed and Joseph B. Strauss is appointed as architect/designer.

January 5, 1933 – Construction begins.

May 27, 1937 – The bridge is completed and opens to pedestrians. The bridge is built at a cost of approximately $35.5 million and comes in under budget and ahead of schedule.

May 28, 1937 – The bridge is opened to vehicles.

August 7, 1937 – World War I veteran Harold Wobber, the first bridge suicide, purportedly says, “This is where I get off,’ and then jumps to his death.

1939 – A safety railing to prevent suicides is installed. The original bridge design by Strauss called for fencing over five feet as to be “practically suicide-proof.” Architect Irving Morrow changed that and lowered the railing.

August 9, 2002 – California’s Office of Homeland Security alerts the FBI after receiving an anonymous tip that terrorists plan to crash a U.S. military plane into the bridge.

May 8, 2012 – Opening of the Golden Gate Bridge Pavilion.

June 27, 2014 – San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge Board of Directors unanimously approves a funding package totaling $76 million to erect and fund a suicide deterrent net on the bridge.

January 12, 2015 – The bridge re-opens after the two day installation of a Road Zipper System. The “moveable median barrier system” is designed for traffic management and to protect riders from cross-over accidents.

April 2017 – Two Wisconsin teens climb the north tower without being noticed by security. Officials are unaware of the events until weeks later when the teens uploaded a video of their climb to YouTube.

August 2018 – Construction begins on a suicide deterrent system. The net is completed in January 2024.

July 1, 2019 – District tolls and fares increase for drivers crossing into San Francisco. Toll increases will continue through 2023 in order to help reduce the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District’s $75 million budget shortfall.

June 2020 – The bridge begins making sounds that can be heard as far as three miles away. The “musical tones” coming from the bridge are a result of a project “designed to make the bridge more aerodynamic under high wind conditions and is necessary to ensure the safety and structural integrity of the bridge for generations to come,” a Golden Gate Bridge district spokesperson tells CNN.

July 7, 2023 – The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District faces a $423 million operating shortfall through 2028 due to a significant decrease in traffic driving across the bridge and paying the toll following the Covid-19 pandemic.

June 27, 2025 – The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District votes to remove diversity, equity and inclusion language in policy documents in order to comply with the Trump administration’s new funding rules. The district is relying on a $400 million federal grant to be used to retrofit the bridge.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Nigel Farage wins election in which his main rival was a trash can

By CNN
(CNN) — When voters in the English seaside constituency of Clacton went to the polls on Thursday, they ostensibly had more choice than in any other election in British history.Thirty-four candidates stood in this by-election, the equivalent of a US special election, making the ballot paper 3 feet long. But almost all the country’s half-dozen major political parties declined to participate, with only the populist hard-right Reform UK party fielding a candidate – its leader Nigel Farage.Farage was ultimately re-elected by a substantial margin, winning 22,239 votes. He had declined to attend the results ceremony, citing a police warning about a campaign to disrupt it.His main opponent, Count Binface – a self-described intergalactic space warrior dressed as a trash can – won a creditable 9,455 votes.But this election, rather than helping to solve Farage’s problems as he perhaps hoped, has only added to them.The country’s chief anti-immigrant activist and Brexit architect, Farage was already the member of parliament (MP) for Clacton but resigned from parliament – triggering the by-election – after facing unprecedented scrutiny over his finances. Those challenging him were Binface and 32 other fringe or novelty candidates.The spectacle promptly became an object of ridicule, derided as a “circus” by commentators, while the claims over Reform’s finances refuse to go away. At the same time, Farage faces both a split in his natural coalition of voters and a more formidable opponent in Britain’s new center-left prime minister, Andy Burnham. Such headwinds are unfamiliar for Reform, which had previously been in the ascendancy, leading national opinion polls and enjoying historic gains in local elections.Novelty candidatesFarage resigned as Clacton’s MP six weeks ago, as a steady drumbeat of allegations surrounding his and his party’s financing forced him to confront questions he hadn’t previously had to answer in his political career.He has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and said: “I’ve decided the people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions” when triggering the by-election.Farage sought to frame the contest as him taking on the establishment. But, said Tim Bale, a professor at Queen Mary University of London who studies right-wing politics, “it’s not worked because the other political parties … declared they wouldn’t stand, meaning the … framing has been him versus a bunch of novelty candidates.”And holding an election has opened Farage to criticism over its cost, which is expected to be around £250,000 ($338,000). The public is legally bound to pay that, despite Farage’s protestations that Reform would foot the bill.Before Farage resigned, he was facing an investigation by the parliamentary standards committee and that inquiry will resume now he has been re-elected. If it finds he breached parliamentary guidelines, that will trigger a process which could ultimately lead to another by-election. The other major parties would be expected to field candidates in that vote.Challenge from the rightWhile Farage is caught in this election spin-cycle, the grip he holds over his voter base is also faltering. Reform is now facing a challenge from its right flank as the newly established party Restore Britain – founded by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe – siphons off a small but significant portion of voters.Lowe, who has a longstanding feud with Farage, was forced out of the party last year and subsequently started his own, egged on by US billionaire businessman Elon Musk. Now sensing an opening, Lowe has sought to form an alliance with Farage, conditioned on Farage accepting some of Restore’s more extreme policies. Farage has not so far appeared keen to bury the hatchet.“A pact would be tricky because Restore’s policies are so extreme that adopting them would make Reform less attractive to voters who aren’t really into the whole far-right package,” Bale told CNN.All this comes against the backdrop of a new national government. Labour leader Burnham is more popular than his predecessor Keir Starmer and has already proven his ability to take on Reform during his successful return to parliament earlier this summer.In this by-election, Farage has only proven his ability to defeat an intergalactic space warrior with an upturned trash can on his head. Of course, Count Binface is not actually from space; he is a satirical character created by the comedian Jon Harvey, and has stood in several other elections.“Until August 13th, I want it to be absolutely clear that there is nowhere at all that matters to me more in the cosmos than Clacton,” he told CNN’s Max Foster from his “starship,” which he said he had transformed using a holodeck “to create the precise look of a budget hotel in Clacton.” Farage did not respond to an interview request from CNN.Binface’s manifesto is packed with national in-jokes, like promising to “cut your taxes, and raise everyone else’s,” nationalize the singer Adele and impose a “windfall tax on cosy crime novels written (or ‘written’) by celebrities.”Outlandish costumesBinface is just one in a long line of satirical candidates dating back more than six decades, who have become a unique staple of British elections. Almost anyone can run for parliament in the UK – only a £500 ($675) deposit and 10 supporters of the bid are needed – allowing for people to make their joke, or point, without too much trouble.The tradition took hold in 1963, when a young musician later known as Screaming Lord Sutch stood in a by-election. He would contest 41 parliamentary seats in all, including against three sitting prime ministers, and founded the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in 1982, according to its website.None of the party’s candidates — think Nick the Incredible Flying Brick and its current leader, Howling Laud Hope — have ever been elected to Westminster. But it inspired others to follow in its footsteps, and its three candidates in Clacton together took 61 votes.Behind the jokes, some campaigns have carried serious messages, like a man dressed as a fox advocating for animal rights who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Burnham when the former Manchester mayor returned to parliament in June.Several of the late Sutch’s policies, such as lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 and legalizing commercial radio, were eventually enacted. Still, some have derided the spectacle of novelty candidates.As for Binface, his vow to be a unity candidate was not enough to win, despite his pre-vote bravado.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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