You must have crossed the Shoemaker Bridge if you have driven in and around Long Beach. Built in 1953, this bridge serves as a vehicular route for 710 Freeway and is connected to the Broadway and Shoreline Drive exits. 

The City of Long Beach, in collaboration with Caltrans, will replace the Shoemaker Bridge with a new bridge. This bridge will improve structural integrity, increase traffic safety and operations, improve streetscape on major thoroughfares, address non-standard features and design flaws, and expand multimodal connectivity. 

The Shoemaker Bridge Replacement Project is located at the southern end of the Interstate (I-710) Freeway in Long Beach, and the Los Angeles River bisects it. The Shoemaker Bridge Replacement Project is an early action project for the I-710 Corridor Improvement Project.

The proposed Shoemaker Bridge design will be a four-lane, cable-stayed bridge that will connect I-710 to a new elevated roundabout at 7th Street and Shoreline Drive.

The modern cable-stayed bridge will make use of stay cables, tiebacks, structural steel, and post-tension concrete. The symmetrical rings will be roughly 240 feet above the normal high water level and 765 feet wide from tip to tip. The cable-stayed bridge is being built to withstand seismic activity, sea level rise, harsh weather, and strong winds. The lowering of the Los Angeles River's bridge piers from five to two will improve the river's hydraulic properties, allowing for greater unrestricted movement of aquatic and amphibious fauna. 

Regional transportation officials have approved $4 billion in upgrading the 710 Freeway corridor. The Long Beach-East LA Corridor Mobility Investment Plan will cover 18 cities and about 19 miles from Long Beach to East LA.

 A significant portion of which will go toward the Shoemaker bridge. The LA Metro board included $9.3 million to fund the design of the new bridge. The total cost of constructing the bridge is estimated at $900 million and is expected to be completed before the 2028 Olympics. 

The project would also improve access to park space by realigning the northbound lanes to Shoreline Drive's current southbound lanes, freeing up a 5.6-acre stretch of green space west of Cesar E. Chavez Park that has been unused for decades.

Till now, officials have been able to secure half of the $60 million cost for the project’s realignment. 

The first set of projects, approved on April 25, includes $743 million from county tax measures R and M, which officials intend to leverage for an additional $3.3 billion in state and federal funding.

In addition to the Shoemaker Bridge project, Long Beach will see improvements to the 710 interchanges with Atlantic and Long Beach Boulevards, Pacific Coast Highway, Wardlow Road, and Anaheim Street.