Posted on 09/06/2009 10:29:55 PM PDT by george76
Hundreds of thousands of Bay Area commuters remain in limbo today as crews scramble to complete an emergency repair to the workhorse Bay Bridge.
The 73-year-old bridge, crossed by more than 260,000 cars and trucks a day, was shut down for a larger, unrelated seismic upgrade project.
Now, crews are working to fix a cracked steel link, called an eyebar, that helps hold up the east span. Inspectors discovered the problem Saturday afternoon, setting in motion a dash to fix a problem that - by itself - would have forced officials to shut down the bridge.
"There's a lot of rust in the crack, so it's been there for a while," Forner said.
The last time the bridge was inspected was in 2007.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
From an outsiders perspective, I’ve heard they are one of the best bridge contractors out there. Any additional thoougths from a local?
Kiewit was the lead contractor on the “Skyway” job I was on. This was the long, plain looking portion of the bridge from the toll plaza to the suspension bridge near the island.
The Kiewit staff on that project were simply exceptional. They were prepared, effective, efficient and very safety conscious. I was very impressed and proud to be able to work with such an effective group.
That does not mean that my team of engineers didn’t have to be on site and enforce the contract. That goes without saying, in order to insure the bride is built to the specifications and quality we demand for the longevity of the structure.
But the Kiewit folks were an excellent group. That bridge is well constructed and will do its job for a long time.
I’m sorry you have such a bad experience.
For my part, I’ve generally been impressed with the engineer consultants I’ve had the honor to work with. Most of them are smart, on the ball and hard working.
Your example is true and does represent the difficulty of living within a bloated bureaucracy saddled with a massive body of restrictive laws. This is not unique to Caltrans. Any big private company operating in California is going to have to comply with all of those laws.
With respect to your example, I’ve been on both sides of it. I’ve had to tell contractors they couldn’t use a fabulous idea because we could not get the idea approved. You know that when placing steel reinforcing for a bridge, you need to support it on something to keep it at the right height above the forms. Usually this is done with small concrete blocks, called “dobies”. If the bars need to be held at a non-standard height, the contractor has to hand-build repar supports, called “chairs”. Our contractor wanted to use a prefab chair made from high-impact plastic, but out specs didn’t allow for it. The reason is, the shape left less room for the concrete to flow in between the legs of the plastic chair. I wanted this item approved, but lab turned it down because they could not be convinced that air-holes in the chairs could not be avoided. Win some, lose some.
But I also approved several changes the contractor asked for. We sent the materials they wanted to use to our lab for testing, which approved or denied their requests. Approved products were then added them to our Prequalified Products List. I got several changes made that were outside our “specs” this way.
Keep in mind that if the state was not so lawsuit-happy, we could be more flexible. If we make an unproven change and anything goes wrong for any reason, a lawyer is going to find that change and he is going to go to a jury and say “Why didn’t you use the approved products you knew were safe? Why did you allow the use of an unsafe, unproven item? My client deserves money.”
I will agree with you that Caltrans has become a bloated bureaucracy that is slow moving. I saw the state of Nevada use large orange barrels when the closed lanes and it took years for that to be implemented with Caltrans. Again, we are saddled with laws we have to comply with, and then there is liability.
CC Myers is a good, effective contractor. They get work done, especially when the “old man” is on site. I am sure Mr. Myers is on site at the bridge all weekend. These critical bridge closures come with stiff penalties for not finishing on time and rich bonuses for finishing ahead of schedule. CC Myers always finishes ahead of schedule, at least it is rare for them not to.
Shutting down the bay bridge causes a MASSIVE impact to the local community. Millions in revenue are lost when businesses have to defer work. Think about all the money lost by truckers who have to plan a different route during the bridge closure and then have to suffer the increased congestion and resulting increased costs.
When we close a bridge or highway, the impact is tremendous and very expensive. In this case, it has to be done. Cars can’t leap over the temporary gap in the bridge. But I’m only too aware of the impact.
We are lucky to have a reliable, effective contractor like CC Myers on this kind of really time-critical work. They are a good, effective contractor. I enjoyed working with them
That is typical Kiewit.
Thanks for the follow up :)
He was praised as a hero locally, as our commutes didn't have to be six hours any longer.....the zillions that company earned in speed bonuses were begrudged by nobody.
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