The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana is a huge technical feat that went down in history in 1969 when Guinness World Records named it the world’s longest bridge over water. This honor has been happily held by the causeway for more than 60 years, through many problems and debates.
In reaction to New Orleans’s growing transportation needs in the 1940s and 1950s, the causeway’s first two-lane span was built in an amazing 14 months. It opened to the public in 1956 and is 23.86 miles long. It’s so long that drivers lose sight of land for eight miles, which has sometimes made them afraid of the sea.
Over the years, the causeway has seen some amazing things. Babies were born on its length because their mothers couldn’t wait to get to the hospital, and an airplane that ran out of fuel over Lake Pontchartrain safely landed on the bridge.
Ten years after the first bridge was finished, there were more than 5,300 cars crossing every day, so plans were made to make the causeway longer. A second two-lane span was added in 1969, about 84 feet away from the first one. Because of this addition, the span now holds the Guinness World Record for being the world’s longest bridge over water.
But in 2011, China’s 26.5-mile-long Jiaozhou Bay Bridge became a candidate. It looked like the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway might lose its title, but there was a disagreement about Guinness’s standards, which took into account buildings like land bridges and an underwater tunnel, which are not really “over water.”
To settle the argument, Guinness added two new divisions. It was named the “longest bridge over water (continuous)” and the “longest bridge over water (aggregate)” went to the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge took the title in 2018, but the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is still the world’s longest bridge that goes over water without stopping.
People who take the bridge to get from Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans, to Mandeville, which is on the northern shores of Lake Pontchartrain, continue to be amazed at how well this engineering feat was done. Tolls are $5 in cash and $3 for tags that are used with an electronic toll collection system. They are only collected on the north shore for traffic going south. At the 16.0-mile mark, a bascule drawbridge makes it easier for boats to pass under the causeway, adding to its reputation as a lasting sign of creativity.
