With the terrible condition of Bay Area traffic, we need an additional bay bridge. Let us consider the statistics: Since 1990, the region’s population has increased by 27.5 percent to 7.68 million today. It is projected to increase by another 21 percent to 9.3 million by 2040. Traffic on our roads and bridges increases proportionally: the 300,000 vehicles per day on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, will increase to some 363,000 vehicles by 2040. The attraction of the Bay Area means this growth will not abate.

According to the U.S. Census, 90.47 percent of the Bay Area’s workforce that needs transportation uses a vehicle to get to work and requires roads and bridges. Clearly, improvement on vehicle transportation is badly needed. BART travelers constitute only 3.3 percent of commuters, so even a second BART tube would have a negligible effect on traffic improvement. Bus transportation does not help much, as it serves only about 5 percent of commuters. Moreover, it requires the same additional traffic capacity that is necessary for cars and trucks.

Mass transportation options have one major negative characteristic — a passenger needs additional transportation from home to the initial station of mass transportation (BART, bus, ferry) and from its final station to the final destination. This is the main reason people prefer vehicles. Why would more than 90 percent of our workforce spend hours in traffic congestion if they had a better option?

If we compare the number of bridges at other developed centers, such as New York City, London, Paris and Sydney, with San Francisco, there are 700,000 people per bridge in Bay Area versus 171,000 for New York City, and around 250,000 to 290,000 for London, Paris, or Sydney! By 2040, the number for the Bay Area will be 5 times greater than the current number for New York City. Are we still surprised that our traffic conditions are so terrible?

When comparing the daily traffic per bridge, the Bay Area has many more cars than the other locations; the busiest New York City bridge has 22,300 vehicles per bridge lane versus the 32,000 vehicles per lane for the Bay Bridge. Moreover, the Bay Bridge has 1.5 times more vehicles per lane than any other bridge in the Bay Area.

Building an additional bay bridge seems to be the only viable option for improving transportation for the regional workforce. Improving traffic requires a direct approach — like increasing bridge capacity.

Any additional ferry, BART, bus, or smart-train services will help improve the situation, but with negligible effect. The obvious solution, based on the statistics, is to build more bridges, and the first one needs to be near the existing Bay Bridge.

Simply deciding to have a new bridge and developing the necessary funding is not enough: A perfect example is the new east span of the Bay Bridge. Have the local and transportation authorities learned the lesson from that experience — how a major bridge should not be designed and built? Probably not.

Today, when the country is preparing to make a significant effort to fix its infrastructure with a $1 trillion federal spending plan, it is critical to include the necessity for an additional Bay Area bridge in the early planning and to follow later with plans to deal with the insufficient capacity of Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

An additional bay bridge can be built in four to five years, including concept, design and construction, provided that it has the support of local governments and the public. The cost should be comparable to the efficient bridge structures of this magnitude — around $3 billion.

This bridge should be designed and built based on an open competition among engineers and builders. Such competition should not be under the questionable control of Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, but under our professional engineering and design organizations SEAONC (Structural Engineers Association of Northern California), ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) and AIA (American Institute of Architects). Once the project design is chosen, we come to the next problem — how to build the bridge without repeating the fiasco of the Bay Bridge eastern span replacement.

Eighty years ago, our country built two of the greatest bridges ever (the San Francisco-Oakland Bay and the Golden Gate bridges). Today, we have the best computers, software, high-level construction technology and equipment. We are capable of building another great bridge.

Roumen V. Mladjov is a structural and professional engineer.

How the

Bay Area gets to work

78.1% use cars, trucks or vans for transport to work

7.8% use other public transportation, including ferries and buses

5.4% work from home

3.6% walk to work

3.3% use BART