Lake Pontchartrain Causeway

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Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
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Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
Heading south on the Causeway toward New Orleans
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Heading south on the Causeway toward New Orleans

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway consists of two parallel bridges that are the longest bridges in the world. These parallel bridges cross Lake Pontchartrain in Southern Louisiana. The longer of the two bridges is 23.87 miles (38.41 kilometers) long. The bridges are supported by over 9,000 concrete pilings.

The southern end of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is in Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans. The northern end is at Mandeville, Louisiana.

The original Causeway was a two-lane span that opened in 1956. A parallel two-lane span, 1/100th of a mile (16.1 m) longer than the original, opened in 1969. The Causeway has always been a toll bridge. Until 1999, tolls were collected from traffic going in each direction. To alleviate congestion on the south shore, toll collection were eliminated on the northbound span. The standard tolls for cars changed from $1.50 in each direction to a $3.00 toll collected on the North Shore for southbound traffic only.

The opening of the Causeway boosted the fortunes of small North Shore communities because residents could commute to New Orleans, bringing the North Shore into the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area.

After Hurricane Katrina on August 29th, 2005, videos collected showed damage to the bridge, but the damage was largely cosmetic and mostly on the unused turnaround on the older southbound span; the structural foundations remained intact. With the I-10 Twin Spans severely damaged, the Causeway was used as a major route for recovery teams to get into New Orleans. The bridge was reopened for public use on October 14th, 2005.

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway should not be confused with the Pontchartrain Expressway, a section of Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 90 in downtown New Orleans.

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