The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway (), also known simply as The Causeway, is a fixed link composed of two parallel bridges crossing Lake Pontchartrain in southeastern Louisiana, United States. The longer of the two bridges is long. The southern terminus of the causeway is in Metairie, Louisiana, a south shore suburb of New Orleans. The northern terminus is in Mandeville, Louisiana, a north shore suburb of New Orleans. From 1969 until 2011, it was listed by Guinness World Records as the longest bridge over water in the world; in 2011, in response to the opening of the longer Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in China, Guinness World Records created two categories for bridges over water: continuous and aggregate lengths over water. Lake Pontchartrain Causeway then became the longest bridge over water (continuous), while Jiaozhou Bay Bridge the longest bridge over water (aggregate). The bridges are supported by 9,500 concrete pilings. The two bridges feature a bascule, which spans the navigation channel south of the north shore. History The idea of a bridge spanning Lake Pontchartrain dates back to the early 19th century and Bernard de Marigny, the founder of Mandeville. He started a ferry service that continued to operate into the mid-1930s. In the 1920s, a proposal called for the creation of artificial islands that would then be linked by a series of bridges. The financing for this plan would come from selling home sites on the islands. The modern causeway started to take form in 1948 when Ernest M. Loëb Jr. envisioned the project. Due to his lobbying and vision, the Louisiana Legislature created what is now the Causeway Commission. The Louisiana Bridge Company was formed to construct the bridge, which in turn appointed James E. Walters Sr. to direct the project. Ernest M Loëb was assisted by his nephew, Ernest M. Loëb III, president of Ernest M. Loëb & Company to plan the construction of the bridge The original causeway was a two-lane span, measuring in length. It opened in 1956 at a cost of $46 million (equivalent to $ million in dollars). This included not just the bridge, but three approach roads on the north end and a long stretch of road on the south end. On June 16, 1964, six people died when barges tore a gap in the bridge and a bus plunged into the lake. A parallel two-lane span, longer than the original, opened on May 10,