Transactions Newsletter

July/August 1999: TLC

Project Updates: Bridges in Brief

On a sunny morning in early July, groundbreaking ceremonies at the Benicia-Martinez Bridge officially launched construction of a new span to link Contra Costa and Solano counties. The $385 million bridge is one of several major Bay Area bridge projects in the works that are mandated and financed by Regional Measure 1 (RM1), the 1988 voter-approved ballot measure that raised tolls on the region's seven state-owned toll bridges to a uniform $1. (In 1998 a $1 surcharge for seismic retrofit was added to bridge tolls.) All three RM1 projects described below are scheduled for completion in 2003.

The current Benicia-Martinez Bridge spanning the Carquinez Strait will be widened to four lanes of traffic southbound, plus a two-way bicycle/pedestrian lane. The new causeway, east of the existing one, will carry five lanes of northbound traffic, including a slow-vehicle lane. In order to accommodate the new bridge approach and an expanded toll plaza -- relocated to the Contra Costa County side -- freeway interchanges at either end of the bridge will be reconstructed as well.

In the next few months, construction contracts will be awarded for a new Carquinez Bridge, a twin-tower suspension span to replace the 72-year old, westbound steel truss span. The new bridge will include a bicycle/pedestrian lane, and the existing eastbound structure will be retrofitted.

Photo: Caltrans

Computer-enhanced photo of the Carquinez Bridge showing the new west-bound span. (Click image to enlarge)

The San Mateo-Hayward Bridge project will complete the work to widen the bridge and its approaches from two to three lanes in each direction. A new span will be built north of the existing low-rise, trestle section and the eastern approach widened to three lanes. (The high-rise portion will remain unchanged.) The project passed an important milestone recently when the Bay Conservation and Development Commission approved Caltrans' plans, with the proviso that a bicycle shuttle across the span be provided and the Bay Trail at the Hayward end of the bridge be improved. (The design includes a pedestrian/bicycle overcrossing of the eastern approach for safer access to the shoreline path.)

Design of another bridge project -- the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge -- is stalled due to the U.S. Navy's refusal to permit necessary geotechnical test drilling on Yerba Buena Island (YBI). The Navy opposes the span's northern alignment, which is the basis of the design selected by MTC acting as the Bay Area Toll Authority. Without test drilling, Caltrans cannot finalize the design, now 65 percent complete for the long viaduct section of the bridge but only 30 percent complete for the section over YBI. Caltrans estimates the delay has cost $50 million and added nine months to construction.

Gov. Gray Davis has written to Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig, urging that the drilling be permitted, stating, "...As Governor my paramount concern is public safety...Every day of delay in completing this seismic safety project courts another disaster."

In the meantime, MTC has approved several additional design features recommended by the Bay Bridge Design Task Force and the Engineering and Design Advisory Panel. The commission approved equipping the new span with motion detectors to measure response to future earthquakes; using "earth fill" instead of shallow piers at the Oakland touchdown; and constructing seven rest stops on the bicycle/pedestrian path.

-- Réka Goode

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