News

New Bay Bridge to open decades after ’89 quake

One of California's costliest public works projects is a wrap

The Columbian

Published: August 31, 2013, 5:00pm

The old, right, and the new Bay bridges come together Friday during the bridge closure in Oakland, Calif.

SAN FRANCISCO — When traffic flows across the new stretch of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for the first time this week, it will do so nearly a quarter-century after a deadly earthquake during the 1989 World Series collapsed two 50-foot sections of the old structure.

The 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta quake hit just as millions tuned in to watch Game 3 of the “Bay Bridge World Series” between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants, killing 63 people and causing up to $10 billion in damage.

The Bay Bridge failure, one of the temblor’s most memorable images, prompted one of the costliest public works projects in state history. The $6.4 billion project finally draws to a close after decades of political bickering, engineering challenges and billions in cost overruns.

The new bridge is scheduled to open by 5 a.m. Tuesday at the latest.

The delays magnified public safety concerns over the need for a permanent solution as the original, seismically unsafe bridge, which opened during the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt, was patched up and continued operating.

Highlighting the decades of complications, the scheduled opening of the new bridge was in jeopardy again this year after crews discovered dozens of defective rods used to anchor the roadway to important earthquake safety structures. The bridge will open with a temporary fix for these broken rods while the permanent repair, expected to be completed in December, is being installed.

Issues with the rods and myriad delays have left many commuters with a feeling of trepidation about the bridge, even though state officials say it’s one of the safest in the world.

The self-anchored suspension bridge with a looming, single white tower was designed to endure 150 years and withstand the strongest earthquake estimated by seismologists to occur at the site over a 1,500-year period.

Steve Heminger, chairman of the Toll Bridge Program Oversight Committee, the project’s watchdog, said the span is orders of magnitude safer than the current crossing.

“Some bridges in California have been built not to collapse in an earthquake, but they may be out of service,” Heminger said. “We couldn’t have that with the Bay Bridge, which is not only pivotal to the economy but also plays a critical role in helping us recover.”

“I’m not here to suggest that there weren’t construction challenges along the way, but they have been dealt with.”

In the decades since the earthquake, the bridge replacement project overcame many hurdles.

An initial scientific recommendation following Loma Prieta called for retrofitting the current span, not replacing it. A National Science Foundation team that studied damage to the bridge said in 1992 that the current eastern portion should be retrofitted for an estimated cost of $230 million.

But in 1996, the California Department of Transportation’s Seismic Advisory Board disagreed with the national foundation’s findings, saying the cost of replacing the old bridge would be comparable with retrofitting it.

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