Humber Bridge July 1981. With a centre span of and a total length of , the Humber Bridge was the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world for 17 years, until Japan's Akashi Kaikyō Bridge opened on 5 April 1998. The road-distance between Hull and Grimsby was reduced by nearly as a consequence of the bridge. The bridge's surface takes the form of a dual carriageway with a lower-level foot and cyclepath on both sides. There is a permanent speed limit on the full length of the bridge. Each tower consists of a pair of hollow vertical concrete columns, each tall and
Suspension bridge construct special towers, as the buildings can anchor the cables. Cable suspension may also be augmented by the inherent stiffness of a structure that has much in common with a tubular bridge. Typical suspension bridges are constructed using a sequence generally described as follows. Depending on length and size, construction may take anywhere between a year and a half (construction on the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge took only 19 months) up to as long as a decade (the Akashi-Kaikyō Bridge's construction began in May 1986 and was opened in May 1998 – a total of twelve years). Suspension bridges are