The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, also known simply as The Causeway, is a fixed link composed of two parallel bridges crossing Lake Pontchartrain in southeastern Louisiana, United States. The longer of the two bridges is 23.83 miles long. The southern terminus of the causeway is in Metairie, Louisiana, and the northern terminus is in Mandeville, Louisiana. Both are in the New Orleans metropolitan area.

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway holds the Guinness World Record for longest continuous span over water in the world. It previously was listed as longest bridge over water in the world; in 2011, in response to the opening of the Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge in China, Guinness World Records created two categories for bridges over water: Lake Pontchartrain Causeway then became the longest bridge over water (continuous), while the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge became the longest bridge over water (aggregate).

The bridges are supported by 9,500 concrete pilings.[5] The two bridges feature a bascule, which spans the navigation channel 8 miles (13 km) south of the north shore.

The idea of a bridge spanning Lake Pontchartrain dates back to the early 19th century and Bernard de Marigny, the founder of Mandeville. He started a ferry service that continued to operate into the mid-1930s. In the 1920s, a proposal called for the creation of artificial islands that would then be linked by a series of bridges. The financing for this plan would come from selling home sites on the islands. The modern causeway started to take form in 1948 when Ernest M. Loëb Jr. envisioned the project. Due to his lobbying and vision, the Louisiana Legislature created what is now the Causeway Commission. The Louisiana Bridge Company was formed to construct the bridge, which in turn appointed James E. Walters Sr. to direct the project.[6] Ernest M Loëb was assisted by his nephew, Ernest M. Loëb III, president of Ernest M. Loëb & Company to plan the construction of the bridge

The original causeway was a two-lane span, measuring 23.86 miles in length. It opened in 1956 at a cost of $46 million (equivalent to $390 million in 2023 dollars). This included not just the bridge, but three approach roads on the north end and a long stretch of road on the south end.

On June 16, 1964, six people died when barges tore a gap in the bridge and a bus plunged into the lake.

A parallel two-lane span, 0.01 miles (16 m) longer than the original, opened on May 10, 1969, at a cost of $30 million (equivalent to $190 million in 2023 dollars).

Since its construction, the causeway has operated as a toll bridge. Until 1999, tolls were collected from traffic going in each direction. To alleviate congestion on the south shore, toll collections were eliminated on the northbound span. In May 1999, the standard tolls for cars changed from $1.50 in each direction to a $3 toll collected on the North Shore for southbound traffic. In 2017, the toll was raised to fund safety improvements on the bridge. The toll changed from $3.00 with cash and $2.00 with a toll tag to $5.00 with cash and $3.00 with a toll tag.

The opening of the causeway boosted the fortunes of small North Shore communities by reducing drive time into New Orleans by up to 50 minutes, bringing the North Shore into the New Orleans metropolitan area. Prior to the causeway, residents of St. Tammany Parish used either the Maestri Bridge on U.S. Route 11 or the Rigolets Bridge on U.S. Route 90, both near Slidell, Louisiana; or on the west side, via U.S. Route 51 through Manchac, Louisiana.

After Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, videos collected showed damage to the bridge. The storm surge was not as high under the causeway as it was near the I-10 Twin Span Bridge, and damage was mostly limited to the turnarounds. A total of 17 spans were lost on that bridge but the structural foundations remained intact. The causeways have never sustained major damage of any sort from hurricanes or other natural occurrences, a rarity among causeways. The existing fiber optic cable plant was blown out of its tray but remained intact per optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) analysis. With the I-10 Twin Span Bridge severely damaged, the causeway was used as a major route for recovery teams staying in lands to the north to get into New Orleans. The causeway reopened first to emergency traffic and then to the general public – with tolls suspended – on September 19, 2005. Tolls were reinstated by mid-October of that year.

The bridge was designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2013.

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