Bay Bridge officials planning $18 million fishing pier to lure sightseers

A rendering of a proposed fishing and sightseeing pier that would be built at the base of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge off Yerba Buena Island. A rendering of a proposed fishing and sightseeing pier that would be built at the base of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge off Yerba Buena Island. Photo: Matier & Ross, Metropolitan Transportation Commission Photo: Matier & Ross, Metropolitan Transportation Commission Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Bay Bridge officials planning $18 million fishing pier to lure sightseers 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Bait your lines, boys and girls — Bay Bridge officials want to build an $18 million fishing and sightseeing pier at the base of the eastern span where it meets Yerba Buena Island.

“People would get a new parklike amenity with access to the bay — a thing everyone loves,” said Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesman Randy Rentschler.

And while some may view a 6,000-square-foot sightseeing platform — connected by a 120-foot-long, 15-foot-wide walkway to the backside of a little-traveled island — as a boondoggle, bridge officials say it’s actually a bargain.

In fact, it may even save money.

Here’s the story:

To obtain the federal, state and local permits needed for the new eastern span, builders had to agree to take down the old span’s foundation piers — all the way to the bottom of the bay.

“They call it demo below the mud line,” Rentschler said.

So for the past year, bridge crews have been setting off underwater charges to implode the old piers at a cost of $94 million.

The problem is that the final pier, adjacent to Yerba Buena, is too big and too close to the island to implode safely.

The cost of demolishing the pier piece by piece would be at least $15 million.

So, bridge officials are proposing to keep the underwater portion intact and put a fishing and sightseeing pier on top.

“Keeping the pier would save money and save us several months of jackhammer demolition,” Rentschler said.

As for leaving the concrete piers just as they are?

“We can’t,” Rentschler said. “The rules are the rules.”

Waterfront wars: As chairman of the three-member state Lands Commission, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has a lot riding on the outcome of the trial to overturn San Francisco’s waterfront height limits as set by voters in 2014.

The Lands Commission sued to overturn voter-approved Proposition B on the grounds that the state — not the locals — has the final say over waterfront development throughout California. The San Francisco measure restricts the height of new waterfront buildings to limits set by the city unless voters exempt a specific project.

The measure landed on the ballot in response to neighborhood objections to high-rise condominium projects green-lighted under Newsom and his successor as mayor, Ed Lee, such as the luxury development that would have been built at 8 Washington St. near the Embarcadero.

Newsom is now running for governor and has come under stinging criticism for the Lands Commission’s lawsuit from San Francisco progressives and his gubernatorial rivals — most notably former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose campaign called the suit “cynical and elitist” last week.

To hear Newsom tell it, however, San Francisco isn’t really the issue. He says the commission was more concerned about setting a precedent in other parts of the state “where people who are not as environmentally sensitive ... might want to up-zone” along a coastline.

“We are 100 percent ... happy to carve out San Francisco, and do a settlement — and we have been trying for months,” Newsom said. “But they (San Francisco officials) just think they are going to win.”

Nonsense, countered John Coté, spokesman for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, whose office defended the city in a weeklong trial before a San Francisco Superior Court judge. The judge has yet to rule in the case.

“It was the state that rejected the city’s settlement proposal months ago,” Coté said.

In the meantime, he said, “if the lieutenant governor wants to carve out San Francisco, perhaps he can convince his commission to drop its lawsuit.”

Now hiring: A public notice has finally gone out to fill the post being vacated by John Funghi, the Municipal Transportation Agency engineer who has overseen San Francisco’s Central Subway big dig for the past 11 years.

Funghi was recruited to honcho Caltrain’s conversion of its rail service from diesel to electric trains — leaving the city’s $1.6 billion project without a top general.

The Central Subway project director’s job pays anywhere from $165,698 to $244,790 a year.

Desired qualifications include the “ability to complete work efficiently, on schedule and within budget.” No small matter, given that the subway’s main contractor, Tutor Perini Corp., recently asked for millions of dollars extra in change orders, and reported that the line won’t be ready for passenger service until spring 2021 — well after the December 2019 target date. The city disputes that.

As for other job requirements?

“Driving and/or extensive night or weekend work may be required,” according to the city’s posting. “Additionally, working in confined spaces, stooping, squatting, crawling, climbing, travel and exposure to noise, fumes, and inclement weather is required on an as-needed basis.”

And putting up with calls from reporters on the latest delays.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross