of the bay. The bridge opened to traffic on August 3, 1969, during the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the founding of San Diego. The 11,179-foot-long (3,407 m or 2.1 mi) bridge ascends from Coronado at a 4.67 percent grade before curving 80 degrees toward San Diego. It is supported by 27 concrete girders, the longest ever made at the time of construction. In 1970, it won an award of merit for long span bridge from the American Institute of Steel Construction. The five-lane bridge featured the longest continuous box girder in the world until it was surpassed by the Shibanpo Yangtze River Bridge in Chongqing, China in 2008. The bridge is the third largest orthogonal box in the countrythe box is the center part of the bridge, between piers 18 and 21 over the main shipping channel. Tolls and tollbooths Originally, the toll was $0.60 in each direction. Several years later, this was changed to a $1.00 toll collected for traffic going westbound to Coronado only. Although the bridge was supposed to become "toll-free" once the original bridge bond was paid (which occurred in 1986), the tolls continued for sixteen additional years. On June 27, 2002, it became the last toll bridge in Southern California to discontinue tolls, despite objections from some residents that traffic to the island would increase. The islands upon which the toll booths sat, as well as the canopy over the toll plaza area, are still intact, located at the western end of the bridge in the westbound lanes. Though tolls are no longer collected, beginning February 19, 2009 there was talk of resuming westbound toll collection to fund major traffic solutions and a tunnel. However nothing came of the discussions, and more recently there have been discussions of removing the unused toll plaza completely. Lanes and traffic The bridge contains five lanes: two eastbound, two westbound, and a reversible middle lane with a barrier transfer machine system installed in 1993 which can be used to create a reversible lane in either direction in response to traffic volume. Prior to installation of the barrier, moveable cones were used to separate eastbound/westbound traffic. On December 7, 1981, Coronado resident Hal Willis was westbound when a drunk driver traveling eastbound at high speeds drove through the cones, hit him head on and caused his death. This incident began the process of implementing the barrier solution. The