The continual reminders of how effectively and efficiently we can repair and upgrade infrastructure, when we want to, is very rewarding and, as so often, our very own CC Myers is at the heart of the work.
Bay Bridge shutdown
Ah, Labor Day weekend in the Bay Area. The A's. The Cal Bears' opening game. The arts and a festival. But the traffic will be a challenge.
By Tony Bizjak - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, August 15, 2007
On the windy flanks of Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay, Bart Ney climbs in his construction vest and hard hat over massive metal beams spread the length of a football field.
The state Department of Transportation spokesman is searching for a way to convey the magnitude of what will happen here on Labor Day weekend.
It's like the Super Bowl for highway officials, he decides. "It's exciting and nerve-racking. Everybody will be watching. You know you have to be ready to do your best."
At 8 p.m. Aug. 31, after the last Friday commute stragglers pass, Caltrans will take the unprecedented step of completely closing the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for 3 1/2 hectic, high-pressure days and nights of major reconstruction.
Crews will demolish a 100-yard bridge section just east of the Yerba Buena Island tunnel, then slide a new, seismically stronger concrete section in its place.
The 6,500-ton, five-lane section already has been constructed on the island adjacent to the bridge deck.
The work is choreographed so that the bridge can reopen at 5 a.m. Tuesday for the return-to-work commute.
"We're going to do this in real time," Ney said. "We've never done that before."
The job will be handled by a company known for its speedy work -- Rancho Cordova contractor C.C. Myers.
The Myers firm earned Bunyanesque status this spring for rebuilding a nearby freeway connector in Oakland less than month after it was toppled by a tanker-truck fire.
Despite the hoopla, that job was routine, Myers said at the time.
This Labor Day, the degree of difficulty and the stakes are both higher, said Randy Rentschler of the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which shares responsibility for the project.
The bridge, which carries more than 250,000 vehicles each weekday, serves as the central transportation umbilical cord between San Francisco and the rest of the world.
