Callahan Bridge

"A major link-way in our beautiful island city."

- GTA III Website.

The Callahan Bridge (also known on street signs in GTA III as the West Port Bridge) is a 4 lane (2 lanes in each direction) suspension bridge, connecting southwestern Portland Island with east-central Staunton Island in Liberty City.

History
Callahan Bridge is the only bridge connecting Staunton and Portland, hence being an essential transport link between the two islands. Like the Shoreside Lift Bridge, the bridge effectively serves as a barrier to prevent the player from venturing into other islands prematurely (referred as the "broken bridge" method of cutting players off from new areas of the city), and will only be usable once the player completes the mission "Last Requests". While not accurately based on any prominent bridges in, the Callahan Bridge does bear some resemblance to the Wards Island-Queen span of the in terms of structural design but not in the strictest sense, featuring only one vertical suspender instead of two. In terms of location, it is based on the.

In Grand Theft Auto III, the bridge was severely damaged in late 2001 by a bomb during an attack at the beginning of the game by the Colombian Cartel on a police convoy that was crossing the bridge at the time. The Cartel attacked the convoy in order to kidnap one of the prisoners it was transporting, and unwittingly set Claude and 8-Ball free as well. As the Portland string of missions are performed, the bridge remains largely uncrossable until the completion of "Last Requests", when the bridge is finally repaired and is operational once again.

As the Porter Tunnel is not completed in Grand Theft Auto Advance, the Callahan Bridge serve as the only link between Portland and Staunton. The bridge design receives a degree of simplification to accommodate the game system's limited hardware capabilities.

In Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, set in 1998, the Callahan Bridge is under construction, so the legal road transport route between Portland and Staunton Island is restricted to a ferry service. Following Driving Mr Leone, ramps are placed on both sides of the bridge allowing the player to jump over the completed spans of the bridge. The expected completion of the bridge as provided by the information pickup at the Portland end of the bridge is "May 1998".

Exploits
Despite being temporarily unusable in GTA III, the player can in fact cross the damaged bridge on foot even before completing the first mission by carefully jumping from one dangling bar to another, allowing them access to both Staunton and Shoreside Vale. While the Shoreside Lift Bridge remains non-functional, the Staunton-Shoreside Vale link of the Porter Tunnel is not sealed off until the Callahan Bridge is fixed; the Portland end remains fenced up. The dangling bar was later moved in the Definitive Edition, patching the exploit.

It is much more difficult, if not impossible, to cross the bridge from Staunton to Portland using the same method, and as such, requires the player resort to others means, such as returning to Portland using a boat or a Dodo, committing suicide (thereby transporting them back to the Sweeney General Hospital in Portland) or being arrested (transporting them to Portland LCPD station).

Trivia

 * In the beta version of GTA III, Callahan Bridge had two suspension towers.
 * In one of the beta drawings of Liberty City, the Callahan Bridge was absent.
 * The bridge name is a reference to Harry Callahan from the Dirty Harry Films.
 * In GTA: Liberty City Stories, the radar map shows the Callahan Bridge completed, even though it is under construction. However, in game, the Callahan Bridge has two cranes and some empty spaces on the main deck, which don't appear on the map.
 * An artwork of the bridge appears in two missions in GTA Advance.