How much does it cost to maintain the Golden Gate Bridge in a year?

The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District expects to spend $103 million in fiscal year 2024, which began this month, to maintain and operate the bridge. That's on top of $31 million the district has budgeted for bridge-related capital projects for the year.



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The truth is that the Bridge is painted continuously. Painting the Bridge is an ongoing task and a primary maintenance job. The paint applied to the Bridge's steel protects it from the high salt content in the air which can cause the steel to corrode or rust.

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One reason the Golden Gate Bridge is a high-value structure is that it enjoys multiple income streams. Total annual revenue averages $145 million a year. As a key infrastructure component for the region, the Bridge is eligible for annual State and Federal Grants. Tolls and fees account for most of the revenue.

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According to the book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, suspension and truss bridges would collapse after two or three centuries without maintenance. The cause would be rust eventually filling the expansion joints, causing damage during hot weather.

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Local citizens put their own properties up as collateral to finance construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Little federal or state money was used to build the bridge. Most of the financing came from bonds sold by the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District.

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Given the GGB's dimensions, about 1,200 passenger cars can fit on the bridge at once. Crunching some numbers: This means that almost three million tons of weight could be pushed down on the bridge's suspension during rush hour.

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The forces carried down through the steel towers are resisted by the strength of the concrete foundations, which extend into bedrock. The pulling or tension forces in the cables are resisted by the massive concrete anchorages at both ends of the Bridge, and those anchorages are also embedded in bedrock.

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5 Fun Facts About the Golden Gate Bridge
  • The bridge is actually not golden at all! It's a bright red-orange.
  • It was named one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
  • It took four years to build.
  • There are approximately 600,000 rivets in each of the bridge's towers.
  • It's the most photographed bridge in the world.


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The zinc protects the steel, because zinc corrodes more easily than steel. Zinc serves as a sacrificial metal, so the steel does not rust when zinc is present. On top of that zinc primer is a top coat of paint in the Golden Gate Bridge's signature color called International Orange.

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The bridge is inspected every five years. Engineers say the foundation and the bridge itself has held up remarkably well since the original construction in the 1930's.

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The Golden Gate Bridge is closely monitored to make sure it does not exceed its stress limits due to traffic, wind and seismic loads. We can look forward to at least another 80 years of this engineering masterpiece. (Top image: Courtesy Getty Images.)

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Between 2000 and 2019, the bridge averaged between 30 and 40 suicides per year. It's been a long hard haul, and I'm delighted that the net is going forward and that suicides have decreased, said Bridge Rail Foundation co-founder David Hull.

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Olson has noted that the Golden Gate is a particularly lethal means of killing oneself: While the average survival rate of bridge deaths is 15%, only 4% of people who jump from the Golden Gate survive.

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