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 nearby Chain Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill (1808). The footbridge's span was 124 m, although its deck was only 0.45 m wide. Development of wire-cable suspension bridges dates to the temporary simple suspension bridge at Annonay built by Marc Seguin and his brothers in 1822. It spanned only 18 m. The first permanent wire cable suspension bridge was Guillaume Henri Dufour's Saint Antoine Bridge in Geneva of 1823, with two 40 m spans. The first with cables assembled in mid-air in the modern method was Joseph Chaley's Grand Pont Suspendu in Fribourg, in 1834. In the United States, the first