Posted on 08/30/2011 12:26:59 PM PDT by SmithL
Oakland -- For the first time since the design of the new east span of the Bay Bridge was selected in 1998, it no longer takes a healthy imagination or a look at artist renderings or models to visualize what it will look like.
On Monday night, catwalk lights were switched on at 7:45, giving the Bay Area a preview of the bridge's after-dark appearance when it opens in 2013. A little more than a week ago, construction crews finished hanging orange catwalks that trace the path that the single-tower suspension span's mile-long main cable will follow.
Construction of the single-tower suspension span - the most complicated and expensive part of the $6.3 billion bridge - is finally nearing the beginning of the end. On Sunday, the four final pieces of the span's 28-piece deck arrived from Shanghai. Over the next few months, they'll be hoisted into place, linking the deck of the suspension span with the white concrete skyway, completed in 2008.
But a lot of work still lies ahead.
"Over the next two years, people are going to watch the cables go up, they're going to see all the pieces come together," said Bart Ney, a Caltrans spokesman. "We'll blink and it will all be over."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Very cool!
Bridge parts from China.
Illegals will probably be the construction crew.
Pretty, but aren’t they wasting a lot of electricity?
Send the electric bill to Algore from his friends in California!
We do not build bridges anymore? need the ChiComs to build for us??
Ah, that is beautiful!
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