CC Myers is doing much of the work on the Bay Bridge and, as usual, it is a lovely thing to watch, and restores faith in public leadership that can, when deciding to do so, really get the job done for the public, and does anyone doubt that they will not be done by Tuesday morning.
I wouldn’t bet on it.
All-out bridge brigade
Retrofit of bay span off to a smooth start
By Tony Bizjak - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, September 2, 2007
Closed to traffic for the first time in 18 years Saturday, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge nevertheless proved to be a teeming focal point -- swarming with hundreds of construction workers, all in a measured rush to repair and reopen the span by Tuesday's morning commute.
The long-planned $40 million retrofit of a portion of the bridge's east span got a quick start minutes after the historic 8 p.m. Friday closure. Work remained mainly ahead of schedule through the night and day, delighting officials who came into the weekend with fingers crossed despite six months of planning.
Workers with saws, massive jackhammers and a towering crane had torn down much of a 350-foot section of seismically unsafe roadway east of the Yerba Buena Island tunnel by Saturday night.
"They're just ripping through it!" said state Department of Transportation official Tony Anziano from his viewpoint next to the main work site on Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the bay.
Of equal relief to officials and area residents, Bay Area freeways were reportedly not much more crowded than usual, despite several major sporting events in Berkeley and Oakland, and a wayward love seat that tumbled out of a vehicle onto two northbound lanes of the crowded Golden Gate Bridge at midday, temporarily stalling traffic.
"Other than that snafu, it looks a lot like a typical weekend," Golden Gate Bridge spokeswoman Mary Currie reported. "The tourists are showing up."
The Bay Bridge, which officials say is the busiest bridge in the state, proved to be the biggest attention-getter, however.
As news helicopters swooped overhead and documentary crews trained cameras from the hillside above, workers turned the span into a five-mile construction site, from restriping work at the Oakland toll plaza to catch-up maintenance at the San Francisco anchorage.
"We're doing everything down to replacing the light bulbs," Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney said.
The core action, however, took place on a short stretch at the center of the bridge, where crews have 81 weekend hours to demolish a football field length of concrete bridge and replace it with a new, preconstructed, ready-to-slide 6,700-ton roadway.
Throughout the day, a massive crane lifted pieces of the chopped-up section onto mammoth flatbed trucks that carried them off the bridge against a backdrop of banging jackhammers and drifting concrete dust.
Officials said the demolition part of the job should be done today.
The big moment is scheduled -- if all goes well -- at 10 tonight when engineers will hit the computer switches on the hydraulic jack-and-winch system that begins the creep of the new bridge deck into place.
It'll be slow-motion drama, however. Officials intend to inch the section into place, to make sure nothing goes awry. The new roadway will have three inches to spare on either side.
"It'll be like watching grass grow," Caltrans official Paul Segal said.
Segal and other Caltrans officials on Yerba Buena Island could not hide their enthusiasm Saturday as the work, much of it done by Rancho Cordova-based contractor C.C. Myers, got smoother through the day.
"They're hitting their stride," said Caltrans' Anziano.
