New Galveston causeway opens today

If you're planning to head to Galveston soon and you have a thing for civic works, have we got a deal for you: Beginning this morning, traffic will enter the island on the new Galveston causeway! We can tell you're getting excited! The new $153 million, two-mile causeway has eight lanes of traffic on a 148-foot-wide deck and features wide shoulders, something the old causeway lacked. The idea is that the new bridge will be safer if the island needs to be evacuated.

If you're a causeway fanatic but can't make it to the beach today — yeah, we know, it's tough — you can still get your causeway fix online. Check out TexasFreeway.com's historic photos of past causeways, a history of the bridge, TxDOT's causeway construction cam, some technical info (which you can get more of if you can track down an issue of Concrete Pumping magazine — naturally, Houstonist has a subscription).

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Photo: TexasFreeway.com