San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge

[HARTride 2012]

Neat pics. I heard they put the last segments into place for the skyway portion. Is this true?

[Armon]

Originally Posted by wslupecki

Neat pics. I heard they put the last segments into place for the skyway portion. Is this true?

Yea the skyway is done, the construction you see in the pictures is the beginning of the suspension bridge.

[LosAngelesMetroBoy]

i still think this bridge looks horrible. Anyway, for those who say caltrans isnt responsible, remember the 580/80 interchange near stoneridge, that STARTED construction before i was born and was only finished a few years ago.


Caltrans in norcal cant get anything done on time. Im suprised this is moving along as fast as it is. AND the fact that you have survived without the bridge for this long kinda says you dont NEED the bridge, so why spend billions building something that looks almost worse than the old bridge, using unstable technology to do it?

[HARTride 2012]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesMetroBoy

i still think this bridge looks horrible. Anyway, for those who say caltrans isnt responsible, remember the 580/80 interchange near stoneridge, that STARTED construction before i was born and was only finished a few years ago.


Caltrans in norcal cant get anything done on time. Im suprised this is moving along as fast as it is. AND the fact that you have survived without the bridge for this long kinda says you dont NEED the bridge, so why spend billions building something that looks almost worse than the old bridge, using unstable technology to do it?

Remember, its not just CalTrans on the bridge. The local and state politicians kept playing around with the project as if it were a toy.

[TICONLA1]

Originally Posted by hoosier

The new span is lower than the existing one. Anybody know why?

It's an optical illusion, Well partially, what's been done is the grade of the roadway has been made more "gentle" or gradual, the elevation at both the new and old mainspans is the same, 210' above mean, (average) sea level, the minimum for an active ship navigation channel, although not many ocean going ships come in through this channel anymore.

[jchernin]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesMetroBoy

i still think this bridge looks horrible. Anyway, for those who say caltrans isnt responsible, remember the 580/80 interchange near stoneridge, that STARTED construction before i was born and was only finished a few years ago.


Caltrans in norcal cant get anything done on time. Im suprised this is moving along as fast as it is. AND the fact that you have survived without the bridge for this long kinda says you dont NEED the bridge, so why spend billions building something that looks almost worse than the old bridge, using unstable technology to do it?

how can u say the bridge "looks horrible"? for one thing, its not even built yet, so your soley going off renderings. i imagine if and when u see this beauty for urself soaring hundreds of feet above the bay u might change ur mind. second, the design was selected as best from a competition:

"The self-anchored suspension (SAS) design was selected in 1998 following an international design competition to give the bridge a "signature" look."
(newbaybridge.org)

"The MacDonald/Weidlinger team won a limited design competition against the team of H2L2 Architects and T.Y. Lin's Seattle office." (donaldmacdonaldarchitects.com)

the architects (donald macdonald) developed "ten self-anchoring suspension conceptual bridge designs, different tower structures, cabling systems and deck profiles. These concepts were tested for structural integrity and aesthetics." (donaldmacdonaldarchitects.com) they then held about ten public meetings to help get feedback on which should be the final design. the addition of the bike and pedestrian path for example is the result of such meetings.

thats why when arnold tried to scrap the single-tower design and just go with the causeway, there was so much rebellion in the bay area. we picked this bridge!

yea, ur right in that it takes a long time to get things done, but its no different from socal. or seattle (light rail was voted in in 1996 and wont be finished summer 2009). want me to bring up la light rail projects?

some bridge concepts:

(all photos are from the donald macdonald website)




















here u can see they have the single tower concept with a different cabling system


and some bonus images of the winning design under construction that uve already probably seen:









these are from newbaybridge.org:





isnt this sexy?!?


and lastly, courtesy the mtc:

[Jibran]

beautiful, love it

[RON-E]

i heard there were delays, hopefully not to bad, when is completion expected?

[HARTride 2012]

I think there was an earlier post about that. Right now, its 2013 or 2014.

[Skyman]

Looks great

[OneRinconHill]

I'm glad they picked the design that they did, and the only reason why it looks so unattractive now is that, first off it's unfinished, and second of all, it's right next to the old bridge, which is half the size because of it's double decks, so it's gonna look pretty funny. Wasn't the original completion date somewhere in last year though? It's probably going to take an even longer time to finish the new bay bridge than what they're predicting now knowing all the private companies and caltrans.

[gladisimo]

A bit off topic, but if there are many bay area people here, does anyone know if they're extending the 380?

I saw a lot of equipment and trucks gathering over there recently.

(BTW, 380 connects 101 and 280 at San Bruno)

[WonderlandPark]

As others have said, Caltrans in Norcal sucks. I know this project got jerked around at the state level, but other projects up there also move at a glacial pace. Like the rebuilding after the quake. LA didn't put up with shit and we got our freeways up in months, and it wasn't just the famous 14-5 interchange, which was totally gone and on the news, it was also the 10 in mid city and the 118 in the Valley which totally collapsed. You guys took friggin 9 years to get the Cypress rebuilt. I am also shocked at how long the Benicia Bridge is taking. The Bay Bridge replacement is truly the Big Dig of the West Coast, taking waaaaaaay to long and costing waaaaaaay too much for what it is.

Bridges in quake zones and mud soil are built all the time--and have been done for the last few decades and over far, far bigger spans than this thing. Look at a listing for the bridges of Japan, for example, all over big water expanses, in quake country, in shallow water, crappy soils, and with Typhoons to consider, too. All of that in an expensive society to build things, high labor and materials costs and high engineering standards. Makes you wonder.

[Gary_A_Hill]

Originally Posted by jchernin

... thats why when arnold tried to scrap the single-tower design and just go with the causeway, there was so much rebellion in the bay area. we picked this bridge! ...

You're not telling the whole story here. The design was revisited because there was only a single bid for construction of the tower and main span, which was far higher than expected. However, the foundation for the tower was already under construction, so a design revision would not have saved nearly as much as if an alternate design had been chosen in the first place. They stayed with the original design because it was impractical to change it so late in the project.

I don't recall any "rebellion" at all. Most people were so disgusted with the whole business they just wanted it finished. Even Jerry Brown, the most vocal of the politicians demanding a "signature" bridge (as a gateway to Oakland, where he was then mayor), had changed his tune by this time.

I don't know who you mean when you say "we" picked this bridge. It was picked by a committee set up by the demands of a few local politicians. While there was some public process, it was not submitted to the electorate, and the actual cost was not known at the time. Had the project been submitted to a vote of the taxpayers and tollpayers of the Bay Area, with accurate estimates of the cost (probably at least three times that of the original CalTrans plan), it is not likely that "we" would have approved it.

[HARTride 2012]

confusing

I'm just sick of all the politics involved in this project. They've been treating it like a toy.

[612bv3]

Originally Posted by gladisimo

A bit off topic, but if there are many bay area people here, does anyone know if they're extending the 380?

I saw a lot of equipment and trucks gathering over there recently.

(BTW, 380 connects 101 and 280 at San Bruno)

Haven't heard a thing about it. Why would they extend 380 and to where?

[gladisimo]

Apparently not, its used as a storage area.

380 was originally slated to go all the way to highway 1.

Would've been helluva alternative. The only other way to get through now is 92 and 35 (and some smaller roads).

There was a traffic accident on 92 a couple weeks ago while I was heading from HMB, and I wound up U-turning and heading to Pacifica to get back! ><

[HARTride 2012]

That sucks.

[Vera Lúcia Fujimoto]

Wonderful!!!! I loved!!!

[HARTride 2012]

???