By Tony Illia, Special to Boulder City Review

The Hoover Dam Bypass is a challenge-filled construction saga that rivals the building of the historic dam itself.

North America’s longest single-arch concrete crossing, at 1,960 feet, now soars 870 feet over the Colorado River. It carries vehicles a quarter mile downstream from Hoover Dam, and answers a need that dates back to the 1960s.

Plans for a bridge began with the dam’s landlord, the Bureau of Reclamation, which organized a meeting about building an alternate crossing free of hairpin turns.

In 1993, as the draft environmental impact statement was nearing completion, the agency switched its focus from major public works construction to water resource management.

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