Press Releases

For Immediate Release

San Mateo-Hayward Bridge Widening Completed

CONTACT:

Réka Goode, MTC
510/464-7706

Lauren Wonder, Caltrans, 408/232-0228

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 29, 2002...The three-year construction project to add two new lanes plus shoulders to the low-rise section of the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge is coming to an end ahead of schedule. A slate of dignitaries gathered on the new portion of the bridge at 12:30 p.m. today to celebrate the event with a ribbon-cutting and a ceremonial drive across the new lanes. Serving as emcee was Sharon J. Brown, chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC); other speakers included U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos, state Senator Liz Figueroa, state Assemblymen John Dutra and Lou Papan, and California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Director Jeff Morales.

Construction on the bridge began in January 2000, and was expected to last three years. The bridge will open to commute traffic on the morning of Monday, Nov. 4.

The San Mateo-Hayward Bridge widening is the first of several major Bay Area bridge projects to be completed in a $1.6 billion program funded by Regional Measure 1 (RM 1) — the 1988 voter-approved ballot measure that raised tolls on the region’s seven state-owned toll bridges to a uniform $1 to pay for a package of transportation improvements.

Before the widening project, the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge had four lanes (two in each direction) on the flat section and six lanes (three in each direction) on the high-rise section. After construction, the bridge is six lanes wide all the way across, with two shoulders in each direction on the 4.7-mile-long low-rise trestle section. The entire bridge had earlier been strengthened as part of Caltrans’ toll bridge seismic retrofit program.

"Commuters traveling between the East Bay and San Mateo County will have something to celebrate, come Monday," said MTC Chair Brown. "Having the extra lanes and shoulders should make traffic flow much more smoothly in a corridor that has been a serious bottleneck in the past."

"This is yet another example of delivering meaningful congestion relief to Bay Area motorists," said Caltrans’ Morales. "This route was formerly the 11th-most congested route in the Bay Area and has been significantly improved."

Originally built in 1967, the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge currently carries 87,000 vehicles daily, a figure that is expected to reach 95,000 by the year 2010.

The $200 million widening project includes the addition of three new toll booths, each equipped with FasTrak® electronic toll collection, and extension of the formerly two-mile-long westbound carpool lane by one mile eastward along the eastern approach to the bridge. A pedestrian/bicycle overcrossing of State Route 92 on the Hayward side of the bridge also has been built, to provide improved north-south access for the existing Bay Trail in that area, and portions of the trail between the San Mateo-Hayward and the Dumbarton bridges on the eastern side of the bridge have been upgraded. In addition, a bicycle shuttle across the bridge itself has been launched.

Improvements also have been made to the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center, a nature center owned and operated by the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District and located adjacent to the bridge approach.

The widening of the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge is the occasion for inaugurating a whole new call box system for the bridge as well. The new call boxes will become part of the Bay Area roadside call box network overseen by the MTC Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways.

Starting in March, the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge will be the site of yet another new venture — AC Transit will begin operating a bus route across the bridge, using new buses that are part of the Regional Express Bus program launched by MTC just a few weeks ago and purchased with funds from Governor Gray Davis’ Traffic Congestion Relief Program.

Caltrans was responsible for the design and construction of the bridge widening, while funding and oversight were provided by the Bay Area Toll Authority, whose members also serve on MTC, the transportation planning, funding and coordinating agency for the nine Bay Area counties.

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