John Ringling Causeway (also known as Ringling Bridge or Gil Waters Bridge) is a causeway that extends past the

Sarasota Bay Sarasota Bay is a lagoon located off the central west coast of Florida in the United States. Though no significant single stream of freshwater enters the bay, with a drainage basin limited to 150 square miles in Manatee and Sarasota counties, it ...

, from

Sarasota Sarasota () is a city in and the county seat of Sarasota County, Florida, United States. It is located in Southwest Florida, the southern end of the Tampa Bay area, and north of Fort Myers and Punta Gorda. Its official limits include Sarasota Ba ...

St. Armands Key St. Armands Key is an island in Sarasota Bay off the west coast of Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alaba ...

and

Lido Key Lido Key (LEE doh KEE) is a barrier island off the coast of Sarasota, Florida, in the United States. It is part of the city of Sarasota and is connected to mainland Sarasota by John Ringling Causeway. Nearby keys To its north is Longboat Key ...

. The bridge, built in 2003, is a segmental

box girder bridge A box girder bridge, or box section bridge, is a bridge in which the main beam (structure), beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite ma ...

running from Sarasota to

Bird Key Bird Key is a barrier island in Sarasota Bay, south of the John Ringling Causeway, between mainland Sarasota and St. Armands Key. Originally a small barrier island connected to the Ringling Causeway by a tree lined causeway of its own, it was ...

. Another short bridge carries the causeway from Bird Key to Coon Key and St. Armand's Key. The causeway is named after

John Ringling John Nicholas Ringling (May 31, 1866 – December 2, 1936) was an American entrepreneur who is the best known of the seven Ringling brothers, five of whom merged the Barnum & Bailey Circus with their own Ringling Brothers Circus, Ringling Br ...

, one of the founders of the

Ringling Brothers Circus Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows is a circus founded in Baraboo, Wisconsin, United States in 1884 by five of the seven Ringling brothers: Albert, August, Otto, Alfred T., Charles, John, and Henry. The Ringling brothers were sons of a Germ ...

and resident of the Sarasota area.

History

The causeway and its original bridge were built in 1925 by John Ringling, who owned large tracts of land on both Lido and

Longboat Key A longboat is a type of ship's boat that was in use from ''circa'' 1500 or before. Though the Royal Navy replaced longboats with launches from 1780, examples can be found in merchant ships after that date. The longboat was usually the largest boa ...

s. Ringling wanted to develop the islands and financed the cost of the bridge at the cost of approximately $750,000, equivalent to $ in , to connect the islands with the mainland. The ornate bridge opened for traffic on February 7, 1926. It was labeled "one of the greatest engineering accomplishments in the South” by the '' Sarasota Herald'', which also proclaimed, “There are no words adequate with which to express our appreciation.” The original bridge began at the south end of Golden Gate Point in Sarasota. Ringling donated the bridge to the city in 1927. Around 1950, the first bridge began to show that it could not adequately handle increasing traffic to the islands. In 1951, the State Road Department opted to replace the original bridge with a four-lane drawbridge, which was completed and opened to traffic in 1959. The four-lane drawbridge was 20 feet tall and was built connecting directly connecting to Gulf Stream Avenue in Sarasota, about a quarter of a mile north of the original bridge. The bridge from Bird Key to St. Armand's Key was replaced a year prior with the set of bridges carrying four lanes, which are still in service. The drawbridge was built for $20 million, and the original bridge was demolished. Old_John_Ringling_Causeway

Around 2000, the 1959 drawbridge began to suffer the same fate as its predecessor. With the drawbridge opening as many as 18 times a day, it was unable to handle increasing amounts of traffic to the islands. To remedy the situation, construction began on the current high-span bridge in 2001. The tall bridge opened for traffic in 2003 for $68 million. Landscaping around the bridge was financed by private donors. Color-changing LED lighting was added to the bridge in 2019.

References

{{Sarasota, Florida Road bridges in Florida Bridges completed in 2003 1925 establishments in Florida Box girder bridges in the United States Transportation buildings and structures in Sarasota County, Florida