Never Finished

The bridge requires constant maintenance. A crew of 38 painters and ironworkers works year-round, touching up the paint that protects the steel from salt air corrosion. The old myth that they paint it end-to-end and start over is not quite true — they target the worst spots first.

The bridge's main cables contain about 80,000 miles of wire — enough to circle the Earth three times. Each cable is nearly 1 meter thick, spun from tens of thousands of pencil-width steel strands bundled together, and together they carry the full weight of the roadway hanging below.