Posted on 06/23/2005 9:29:50 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO - The Bay Bridge will get a fancy design after all, but the region's motorists will get stuck with paying most of the span's $3.7 billion in cost overruns, under a legislative deal reached Thursday night.
The accord calls for bridge tolls on all state-owned Bay Area spans to jump from $3 to $4 beginning Jan. 1, 2007 and the state to kick in $630 million for the project, which has been saddled with delays and escalating prices since its inception seven years ago.
No further toll increases are planned. Rather, the balance of the $6.3 billion estimated tab of Bay Bridge's new eastern span will be covered by refinancing toll debt. That is expected to generate another $500 million.
In addition, any future cost overruns to build the suspension span must be covered by bridge tolls.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, signed off on the agreement shortly after 6 p.m. today, according to a source familiar with the talks. It still must be approved by the state Legislature.
The deal drew mixed reaction from Bay Area transportation officials and lawmakers, who said they are relieved construction can move forward but had hoped the state would pay a greater portion of the bridge's cost. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2011.
"I think it would be a really good thing, and it's way past time," said Mark DeSaulnier, a Contra Costa County supervisor and member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. He said he had yet to be briefed on the plan but called it "good news."
The agreement, should it hold up, would end 10 months of contentious negotiations between the Schwarzenegger administration and Bay Area legislators. At issue was whether to streamline the design and how to divide the new costs between the area's toll payers and the state.
The Republican governor shocked the region's lawmakers last August when his administration announced the bridge's price tag, previously anticipated to be $2.6 billion, had nearly doubled. The administration blamed the run-up primarily on the bridge's exotic design -- a self-anchored suspension from a tall tower with sweeping cables that is envisioned as an elegant complement to the world-renowned Golden Gate Bridge.
But Bay Area lawmakers pointed to other factors, including poor management by state transportation officials. The state underestimated construction costs and used far more high-cost private engineers than originally forecast, they charged.
Schwarzenegger went on to commission a report by a panel of experts and then to recommend dumping the original design for a skyway -- a highway on stilts. That angered area transportation officials and Bay Area advocates who argued a signature span fit the region's wine-and-cheese image. And because toll payers have been paying for the suspension span since 2001.
Talks between administration officials and top Democrats went nowhere for months, as the bridge's cost continued to rise and a new controversy erupted over whether welds on the first segment of the span were safe. Transportation officials determined the welds met safety standards, despite allegations from workers that the job had been botched because of the push to meet construction deadlines.
Perata and Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, led negotiations with the governor, and conceded from the time they began that higher tolls would be necessary. The only question was when and how much the tolls would climb.
Schwarzenegger pushed the Bay Area to front all the overruns, meaning a $5 toll hike as soon as this year. The region's lawmakers, however, said they wanted the state to cover more overruns right away, thereby allowing a toll hike to be postponed until as late as 2009.
Last summer, the MTC told lawmakers that a toll hike in 2009 would create $1.9 billion through financing and selling bonds. A state contribution of $800 million would be needed right away, MTC officials said.
Under today's agreement, less state money is required because more toll money would be available sooner. A $1 toll hike in 2007 that likely runs for 30 years could provide $2.1 billion by financing and selling bonds.
The bridge is currently forecast to cost $6.3 billion, which includes $800 million in contingencies.
Transportation officials say the self-anchored suspension segment of the project can be bid out and awarded by January, if the deal is passed by June 30.
Art Nicola, a Bay Point resident who said he occasionally drives across the Bay Bridge, applauded the region's legislators for fighting for the more aesthetically pleasing structure.
"Personally, I'd like to see the original suspension span design. The Bay Area is a world class locale and it just doesn't seem right to go on the cheap," Nicola said.
Not if you have to pay to park.
Tolls are charged one way, the other way is no charge, so the toll may be thought of as a round trip fare.
---Dude...it was 14 years ago and I was there.
What kind of idiot thought puts a mere 14 years on earthquake time?---
It was 1989 and I was there too. I'm the kind of idiot that moved to Montana and forgot about that foul place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bay_Bridge_collapse.jpeg
so its $4 round trip. a bargain, we pay $9 in NYC.
I dunno, but I can't believe "it's $9 to cross NY bridges now."
That description sounds like $9 per crossing. Sorry if I'm too pedantic...I was confused.
If they could just figure out a way to make it in China and ship it here. Probably be a lot cheaper that way.
I lived downtown...Bush St....where were you...I was 9 stories up...and man...did that rock 'n roll!!!
well, most people who cross in one direction - have to go back the other way. the only people making one way trips are those moving out of NY.
Like I said, my error. Be well, OV.
Well Mr. Nicola . .. break out YOUR checkbook and write a check for 6 Bil!
Look what Boston paid for one tunnel!
I was at the West Valley school newspaper office in Saratoga. Stuff started falling over and I grabbed my camera at started taking pictures. We had to put out the paper from somebody's house. They wouldn't let us back in the buildings except to retrieve our equipment. Right after I moved to Santa Cruz. It took the downtown ther years to recover.
The Bay Area used to be such a great place to live. Now it's just buried under people and pavement. I miss Big Sur, but that's about it.
Boston? we all paid for it, and its toll free I believe.
If you look up the old records on how the Bay Bridge was built, you will discover that the whole structure is supported on wooden pilings driven into the mud & muck at the bottom of the bay. Just how many more years do you think we have until that wood rots out completely and the fool thing comes down.
Think about the potential lawsuits against the state--they knew the whole shebang was supported on rotten wood, but refused to make repairs or replace the bridge.
I am amazed that the cost overrun is higher than the original price, but that is what happens when there isn't sufficient graft available from the beginning. Politicians have to keep raising the price until they can skim off enough to satisfy themselves.
How 'bout a burger at Nepenthe...lordy...brings back memories....
BTW...SCHOOL NEWSPAPER???!!!...make me feel old!!!
---I am amazed that the cost overrun is higher than the original price, but that is what happens when there isn't sufficient graft available from the beginning.---
I'm not sure but I think 6 billion is more than the annual budget for the state of Montana.
---How 'bout a burger at Nepenthe...lordy...brings back memories....
BTW...SCHOOL NEWSPAPER???!!!...make me feel old!!!---
But I spent a few years in the labor market and 13 years in the Army before I got there.
Nepenthe, beautiful! I used to head south of there to Pacific Valley and camp out in the hills up Naciemento Road.
---If I remember correctly, one of the pilings on the bridge slid over a foot out of position during the 1989 earthquake, and most of the pilings are no longer solidly connected to the bedrock beneath the bay.---
I didn't know that about the pilings, still, 6 billion!
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