[6] Charles Derleth Jr. was selected as the consulting engineer, after having served in that role for the recently completed Carquinez Bridge.

The 1927 Van Damme bridge would have carried a 27-foot-wide (8.2 m) roadway for a distance of 19,000 feet (5,800 m) at an identical estimated construction cost of US$12,000,000 (equivalent to $210,500,000 in 2023).

[9] Soon after winning the franchise rights, Long approached Van Damme with an offer to buy the Richmond-San Rafael Ferry Company for US$1,250,000 (equivalent to $22,200,000 in 2023).

An extension was filed in 1938 to allow construction to start as late as February 1942,[16] and fresh plans for a bridge district to facilitate financing were announced in 1939.

[20] In 1928, Tomasini presented a revised proposal for a bridge farther south than the other two bridges—spanning the water from Albany (in Alameda County) to Tiburon.

[25] The design for a lift span in the proposed Sausalito–Belvedere bridge was changed to a bascule after public comments were received from a local shipbuilder.

[34] Tomasini organized each of the three proposed structures as independent projects, preferably to be built simultaneously, but in the event that one was not approved, it would not delay the construction of the other two.

The bridge portion was a low trestle approximately 19,800 feet (6,000 m) long, extending westward from Point Fleming in Albany in Alameda County.

The proposed tunnel would have been 17,200 feet (5,200 m) long and ventilated by four towers, emerging at Bluff Point near Tiburon in Marin County.

[35] Total estimated cost for the two structures was now US$35,000,000 (equivalent to $781,600,000 in 2023) and despite opposition from the US Navy, who cited potential navigation hazards,[36] the bridge—tunnel was approved by the War Department in July 1932.

[41] In 1949, the County of Marin and the City of Richmond commissioned a preliminary engineering report from Earl and Wright of San Francisco, which concluded that a bridge would be feasible.

[42] A follow-up 1950 study, conducted by the Division of San Francisco Bay Toll Crossings, was commissioned by Marin County and the City of Richmond using US$200,000 (equivalent to $2,530,000 in 2023) in state funding.

The first contract, for the substructure, was awarded to the low bidder, the Ben C. Gerwick, Inc. — Peter Kiewit Sons' Co. Joint Venture for US$14,234,550 (equivalent to $162,100,000 in 2023).

The second contract, for the superstructure, was awarded to the low bid of US$21,099,319 (equivalent to $240,300,000 in 2023) by a joint venture between Peter Kiewit Sons' Co. — A.

Soda & Son — Judson Pacific Murphy Corp.[42] The substructure construction moved rapidly, with an estimated 45% of piers completed approximately a year after the contract was awarded.

[44] After it was completed, many were disappointed by the appearance of the bridge;[53] Frank Lloyd Wright, a famous designer who was not an engineer, reportedly called for it to be destroyed[54] due to its ugliness, and complained that it was "the most awful thing I've ever seen" during its construction in 1953.

Formerly route 40, it runs between the San Rafael Transit Center and the El Cerrito del Norte BART station.

[67] A $1 seismic retrofit surcharge was added in 1998 by the state legislature, increasing the toll to $2 (equivalent to $3.74 in 2023), originally for eight years, but since then extended to December 2037 (AB1171, October 2001).

[68] On March 2, 2004, voters approved Regional Measure 2 to fund various transportation improvement projects, raising the toll by another dollar to $3 (equivalent to $4.84 in 2023).

Caltrans administers the "second dollar" seismic surcharge, and receives some of the MTC-administered funds to perform other maintenance work on the bridges.

The Bay Area Toll Authority is made up of appointed officials put in place by various city and county governments, and is not subject to direct voter oversight.

[85] The fifty-year-old bridge was showing its age and also needed age-related maintenance, which was performed in conjunction with the seismic upgrade work.

For economy, schedule efficiency and traffic impact mitigation, much of the repair work was fabricated off site and shipped to the bridge by barge.

At monthly intervals, tugs positioned barges with one or two 100-foot-long (30 m), 500-ton pre-cast concrete roadway segments, which a 900-ton barge-mounted crane lifted into place.

After the new concrete road segment was in place, steel plates were used to temporarily fill the gaps, and the roadway was ready for morning traffic.

[86] Caltrans revised their estimate to US$665,000,000 (equivalent to $1,144,300,000 in 2023) in May 2001 when more funds were appropriated for California's Toll Bridge Seismic Retrofit Program in Assembly Bill 1171.

The pipe transferred 8,000,000 US gallons (30,000,000 L; 6,700,000 imp gal) of water a day from the East Bay Municipal Utility District's mains in Richmond to Marin's 170,000 residents.

On February 11, 2015, the Bay Area Toll Authority approved a plan to install a protected bike and pedestrian path on the wide shoulder of the upper deck of the bridge.

[91] As part of the same project, a third eastbound lane[92] was added the previous year on the lower deck to be available for evening commutes.

In the film Magnum Force, the bridge is in the background when Dirty Harry and the rookie cop are on motorcycles on the ship's decks where they attempt to subdue each other.