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San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge To Close Sept. 3rd-8th

Tiberius Jim

Tiberius Jim

Vice Admiral
Admiral
I thought I'd spread the word to any San Francisco Bay Area BBSers who (somehow) may not know about this, and to also spread the word in a greater sense about this amazing engineering feat that the workers at CalTrans will be pulling off this weekend.

Here's an excerpt from BayBridgeInfo.org

THE LABOR DAY WEEKEND CLOSURE OF THE BAY BRIDGE WILL BEGIN AT 8 P.M. ON THURSDAY, SEPT. 3.

The bridge will reopen by 5 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 8 as Caltrans completes an essential and unprecedented construction feat.

While the bridge is closed this year, a 300-foot-long double-deck section of the East Span will be cut and rolled out of the way, 150-feet above Yerba Buena Island (YBI). A new double-deck section will be moved into place to connect the bridge with a short detour. Traffic will flow on the half-mile-long detour connecting the East Span to the YBI Tunnel until the new Bay Bridge opens. The traffic shift will allow crews to demolish a portion of the original bridge, and build a new (permanent) connection from the tunnel to the new East Span.
Click to expand...

Yeah, thats right...they're going to cut a 300-foot section of the bridge, and just...move it out of the way. Then they'll move this pre-built replacement in its place. The whole thing is being done to re-route traffic in order to build the rest of the new bridge. Here's a few more links on the Labor Day closure construction and the construction of the new East Span of the bridge.

http://baybridge360.org/ <-- an awesome site showing every aspect of the project.

http://baybridgeinfo.org/1/index.html <-- Features videos highlighting this week's upcoming project.
 
All of the news coverage has been pretty interesting.

Here's hoping all of the folks working on it stay safe.
 
First things first, buddy. I want to be able to drive over that bridge without the fear of the upper level coming crashing down on me. :p
 
^Plus, we have been waiting for going on 20 years now since the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 made evident the need for the replacement bridge. The San Francisco Bay Area is the metropolitan red-headed step-child in California's budget priorities, and this bridge has been a long time coming as a result.
 
Yeah, too bad it won't be finished until late 2013. 23 years to finally do something about that bridge...far too long, in my book.
 
Flux Capacitor said:
I thought I'd spread the word to any San Francisco Bay Area BBSers who (somehow) may not know about this, and to also spread the word in a greater sense about this amazing engineering feat that the workers at CalTrans will be pulling off this weekend.

Here's an excerpt from BayBridgeInfo.org

THE LABOR DAY WEEKEND CLOSURE OF THE BAY BRIDGE WILL BEGIN AT 8 P.M. ON THURSDAY, SEPT. 3.

The bridge will reopen by 5 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 8 as Caltrans completes an essential and unprecedented construction feat.

While the bridge is closed this year, a 300-foot-long double-deck section of the East Span will be cut and rolled out of the way, 150-feet above Yerba Buena Island (YBI). A new double-deck section will be moved into place to connect the bridge with a short detour. Traffic will flow on the half-mile-long detour connecting the East Span to the YBI Tunnel until the new Bay Bridge opens. The traffic shift will allow crews to demolish a portion of the original bridge, and build a new (permanent) connection from the tunnel to the new East Span.
Click to expand...
Yeah, thats right...they're going to cut a 300-foot section of the bridge, and just...move it out of the way. Then they'll move this pre-built replacement in its place. The whole thing is being done to re-route traffic in order to build the rest of the new bridge. Here's a few more links on the Labor Day closure construction and the construction of the new East Span of the bridge.

http://baybridge360.org/ <-- an awesome site showing every aspect of the project.

http://baybridgeinfo.org/1/index.html <-- Features videos highlighting this week's upcoming project.
Click to expand...

Wow!
I'm no SF area BBSer, but I do love bridges. That website is awesome, too, by the way.

I wish they'd repair our bridge, the Brent-Spence bridge, since no one else in our town is going to do it. :lol:

It's now going on a decade where our bridge was rendered "functionally obsolete" by the NBI, and was slated for repair and replacement. It was built in 1963 to handle about 80,000 cars a day. It currently handles about 170,000 cars a day, and is on the nation's list of dangerous bridges.

When I cross it I'm always concerned it's going to decide to take the plunge (it's a double decker cantilever truss bridge) into the Ohio river. :lol:

I'll say this much, the designers and builders did a hell of a job, since it's still standing after being used well beyond it's original design.

Here's a wiki if anyone's interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Spence_Bridge

OK, now back to the awesomeness that is the SF-O Bay bridge. :D

J.
 
and to also spread the word in a greater sense about this amazing engineering feat that the workers at CalTrans will be pulling off this weekend.
Click to expand...

Engineers kick ass! (Sorry for the shamless plug...)

That sounds like a serious feat. I'm trying to imagine the equipment they'll need to bring to pull that off. Crane on a barge or something like that?
 
I don't live in California but I'm still surprised I didn't know any of this has been going on. The website they have is pretty cool, certainly worthy of its Webby Award.
 
Yup. The LED reminders have been flashing on the freeways all summer long. I hear this is the third Labor Day weekend in years they're doing work on the Bay Bridge. Luckily for me, I know better than to travel to the City on a holiday weekend. ;)
 
Drone36929 said:
Yup. The LED reminders have been flashing on the freeways all summer long. I hear this is the third Labor Day weekend in years they're doing work on the Bay Bridge. Luckily for me, I know better than to travel to the City on a holiday weekend. ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah. I've just come to accept as part of living in the Bay Area that the bridge closes for holidays and I-880 closes at midnight. (At least they're not really closing it at midnight every night anymore. However, I was going home from a late night in the school library the other day and they had it down to one lane.)

There are three seasons around here: hot, wet, and road construction.
 
There aren't any big bridges around here. Just the little ones that go over the river. :(

The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge (recently featured in Terminator Salvation) is awesome, but it is so far out of the way.
 
Flux Capacitor said:
Yeah, thats right...they're going to cut a 300-foot section of the bridge, and just...move it out of the way. Then they'll move this pre-built replacement in its place. The whole thing is being done to re-route traffic in order to build the rest of the new bridge. Here's a few more links on the Labor Day closure construction and the construction of the new East Span of the bridge.
Click to expand...
I'm kind of hoping that there'll be video not too long afterwards which takes the whole procedure and telescopes it to five minutes' running time. That would be a thing to watch.

Heck, I've missed most of this bridge re-do. Work had barely started on it by the time I moved out of the Bay Area (but I got to see years' worth of "one step forward, three steps back, then scrap it and do the whole thing again" wrangling over design and placement of the new span.)
 
They did do a time lapse video when they replaced the viaduct back in '07 so I'm pretty sure they'll do one for this. They did a similar procedure of demolishing the existing structure and rolling the new segment into place. The video of that is on baybridge360.org
 
Flux Capacitor said:
They did do a time lapse video when they replaced the viaduct back in '07 so I'm pretty sure they'll do one for this. They did a similar procedure of demolishing the existing structure and rolling the new segment into place. The video of that is on baybridge360.org
Click to expand...
Okay, found it. Cool stuff. :cool:
 
Pardon my ignorance of Bay Area traffic and roads, but...

Isn't closing the Oakland-Bay Bridge going to cause monumental traffic problems?
 
I believe so. On the other hand, if people wish to travel to and from SF during the holiday weekend, they simply need to take various forms of public transit such as BART, bus, and ferry.
 
Trekker4747 said:
Pardon my ignorance of Bay Area traffic and roads, but...

Isn't closing the Oakland-Bay Bridge going to cause monumental traffic problems?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but there have been warnings and talk about it for months now. This is the third Labor Day weekend they've done it and the Bay Area will get by. As for what they are doing, I wish them all the luck in the world. Hopefully like last year they can get done quickly (And efficiently) to open early. It's great that finally something is being done and they have reached this big stage of the work.
 
You just know there was some asshat trying to either enter or leave the city by car tonight who was completely and utterly shocked that the bridge was closed and running into the roadblocks was the first they'd heard of the closure.

I have class in the city tomorrow but I am seriously considering emailing in my work and sleeping in...even though I get on BART at the line, I know its going to become completely packed as I move closer to the city.
 
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