Replies

...um...like an earthquake that tore it in half...cars went over the edge...people died...

That was almost 20 years ago. They did repairs and upgrades. In fact they were running all over the state doing upgrades to bridges, some really ugly upgrades too. What? Are people afraid to drive on it?

That was almost 20 years ago. They did repairs and upgrades. In fact they were running all over the state doing upgrades to bridges, some really ugly upgrades too. What? Are people afraid to drive on it?

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.

They did repairs and upgrades

The upgrades on the Bay Bridge mostly involved installing cables to keep the decks from crashing down again, but they did nothing to address the basic instability in the structure. 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. If this were ANY other bridge in ANY other city, it would have been labelled unsafe and shut down years ago. It's only kept open because San Francisco would implode without it.

There was an engineer who published some calculations about a decade ago showing how a 6.5 quake, epicentered in a particular part of the Hayward fault, could cause the whole thing to fall over on its side...dumping thousands of cars into the SF bay. There's no real question about whether the bridge is needed, but there are a LOT of questions about why it's costing so much. Couple that with the repeated allegations of bad welds and shoddy workmanship on the new span, and we're getting into Big Dig cluster*** territory with this thing.

I do have to admit that I've never understood why they don't charge tolls BOTH ways on the bridge. Instead of a $4 toll one way, charge $2 each way. A LOT of commercial vehicles drive the bay in a loop every day, using the bridge at no cost.