Oakland Marathon runners first to jog on Bay Bridge

For the first time in the marathon’s and the Bay Bridge’s histories, Oakland Marathon participants will get to run on the eastern span of the Bay Bridge. The annual race is being billed as the first-ever running event that uses part of the span connecting San Francisco with the Oakland.

However, this doesn’t mean that the bridge will close to vehicular traffic, according to SFGate. Instead, competitive joggers will jaunt across the Bay Bridge using the pedestrian path, turn around at Yerba Buena Island, and then head back on the pedestrian path toward Oakland.

“With 2019 marking the event’s 10th anniversary, we wanted to deliver a ‘must run’ experience to attract runners from across the country,” said Lee Corrigan, president of CSE and executive director of the Oakland Running Festival, adding, “the cooperation from state and city agencies made the dream of traversing the Bay Bridge come to fruition.”

The race happens on Sunday, March 24.

This isn’t the only marathon to use Bay Area bridges during races. The Golden Gate Marathon, for example, runs its route along pedestrian portions of the Golden Gate Bridge. However, no race temporarily bars motorists from using bridges during marathons.

Cyclists and pedestrians are still forbidden from using the entirety of the Bay Bridge, but there is a portion of the eastern span for both—named the Bay Bridge Trail in honor of Alex Zuckermann, the late East Bay Bicycle Coalition founder—that runs from Oakland to Treasure Island.