S.F. Bay Bridge re-opens with new 'quakeproof' span

Doug Stanglin | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption New San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opens The new, $6.4B Bay Bridge spanning from San Francisco to Oakland opened with fanfare on Monday. After years of delays and cost overruns, the bridge officially opened for traffic seven hours earlier than the planned Tuesday morning deadline. (Sept. 3)

Traffic began streaming across the graceful new $6.4 billion east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge well before normal Tuesday commuter time, assured by officials that it would not only withstand any future earthquakes but provide a lifeline for emergency supplies and vehicles in the event of disaster.

After years of delay and cost overruns, and a ceremonial opening in the afternoon, the 2,047-foot span opened for business late Monday night. The bridge had been closed since Wednesday to get ready for the reopening.

The new span replaces a structure that was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It is designed to withstand the strongest earthquake estimated by seismologists to occur at the site over a 1,500-year period.

The Bay Bridge is actually composed of several parts, beginning with a sleek skyway from the Oakland side that leads to the new, self-anchored suspension bridge -- with its looming, single white tower. The span then leads onto Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the bay.

On the other side of the island, the old double-decker west span, which has been retrofitted to higher earthquake standards, completes the crossing to San Francisco.

The California Department of Transportation has also retrofitted four other major Bay Area bridge, as well as numerous, smaller state-owned crossings, and interchanges. The Golden Gate Bridge is also undergoing a seismic retrofit.

Cars began lining up hours early in an attempt to be among the first on the new span, and California Highway Patrols in troopers with flashing lights began leading a line of drivers across at about 10:15 p.m. Monday, well before the expected opening of 5 a.m. Tuesday.

Because of construction delays and cost overruns, authorities decided to keep the official celebration low-key, and scrapped earlier plans for fireworks, a half-marathon and pedestrians streaming across the new structure.

Instead, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco, cut a chain with a blow torch to mark the opening Monday afternoon after leading those who had gathered around the bridge's toll plaza in a countdown to the reopening. The old eastern span will eventually be demolished.

"I hope this is more than just connecting two land masses," he said. "I hope that the progress that's being represented at this moment is for a generation to dream big dreams and to do big things."

A few minutes later, a small procession of vehicles, that included a transit bus, a new Tesla and a Model A Ford, were escorted through toll booths and across the new east span to formally open the new roadway.

"Despite the journey's length, it has been completed before the arrival of our next big earthquake," said Steve Homing, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. "And thank goodness for that."

Gov. Jerry Brown, who was closely involved in planning the bridge when he was mayor of Oakland, was out of town and unable to attend the ceremony, said his spokesman, Evan Westrup.

Brian Marone, Caltrans' chief engineer, says the technology and design for the new span extends way beyond the rudimentary question of whether it can handle higher magnitudes of earthquakes. That, Maroney, tells the San Francisco Chronicle, is not what they focused on.

Instead, they looked at where any damage might occur, and designed the span to withstand that, much as a crumple zones are designed in cars to absorb the impact of collisions.

"It is naive to assume that the bridge is not going to take any damage," he tells the newspaper."You need to decide where the bridge is going to take the damage."

Beams connecting the four legs of the span's 525-foot tower, for example, are designed to absorb shock independent during a quake.

James Ghielmetti, a member of the California Transportation Commission, said at Monday's ceremony that the bridge should not have taken so long to go up.

"California must do a better job going forward on all of our public works projects," he said.

The project was bedeviled by by problems almost up to opening day. In March, more than two dozen rods used to anchor the roadway to important earthquake safety structures cracked after they were tightened. The discovery threatened to delay the bridge's opening by months.

In the end, the bridge opened with a temporary fix for the broken rods while the permanent repair, expected to be completed in December, is being installed.

The new span includes a 15.5 foot-wide bike and pedestrian path that will be extended onto the island after the old eastern span is removed, according to the Bay Bridge web site

Contributing: Associated Press