The Vincent Thomas Bridge is a suspension bridge, crossing Los Angeles Harbor in Los Angeles, California, linking San Pedro with Terminal Island. It is the only suspension bridge in the Greater Los Angeles area. The bridge is part of State Route 47, which is also known as the Seaside Freeway. The bridge opened in 1963 and is named for California Assemblyman Vincent Thomas of San Pedro, who championed its construction. It was the first welded suspension bridge in the United States and is now the fourth-longest suspension bridge in California and the 76th-longest span in the world. The clear height of the navigation channel is approximately ; it is the only suspension bridge in the world supported entirely on piles. History Assemblyman Thomas, who represented San Pedro, spent 19 years beginning in 1940 arguing for the 16 different pieces of legislation that were necessary for its construction. During that time and in the years right after it was built, it was ridiculed as "The bridge to nowhere". Other bridges to the island included the 1948 Commodore Heim lift bridge connecting SR 47 north and a WWII pontoon bridge from Ocean Blvd. to Long Beach (replaced in 1968 by the Gerald Desmond arch bridge). Until the new bridge's 1963 construction, ferry service from San Pedro was important to cannery and shipyard workers on Terminal Island; private ferries had begun in 1870, and municipal ferry service had begun in 1941. Some residents, including many women who worked at the canneries, tried unsuccessfully to keep one of the smaller pedestrian-only ferries operating after the new bridge's opening because the ferry was available at any time including night-shift hours but the new bus service involved long waits. In 1968 the bridge was connected through SR 47 directly into the Harbor Freeway; having the bridge and connection available was cited by port officials as crucial to the port's success in the era of containerized cargo. The cargo from the San Pedro side of the Port of Los Angeles travels over the Vincent Thomas bridge, onto the Terminal Island Freeway, to the southern end of the Long Beach Freeway, and then up to the rail yards of East Los Angeles. At the 25th anniversary of its opening in 1988, events were held to raise money for $170,000 of permanent decorative lights for the bridge's main cables. In January 2005, after seventeen years of planning and fundraising,