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The new bridge will carry a section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and winding around and across the dam itself. When complete, it will provide a new link between Arizona and Nevada.
An incredible feat of engineering, the road will be supported by the two massive concrete arches jutting out from the rock face. The arches are made up of 53 individual sections, 24 feet long, which were cast on-site and lifted into place by an improvised high wire crane strung between temporary steel pylons. The arches will eventually measure more than 1,000 feet across.
Although the bridge right now looks like a traditional suspension bridge, once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed. Extra vertical columns will be installed on the arches to support the road.
The bridge has become known as the Hoover Dam Bypass, although it is officially called the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge after the former governor of Nevada and the former Arizona professional football player who was later killed in Afghanistan.
Work on the bridge started in 2005 and is scheduled for completion in September of 2010. An estimated 17,000 cars and trucks will cross it every day. The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York to San Francisco.
The stretch of water it created, called Lake Mead, is 110 miles long and took six years to fill.
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