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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

September 2004

Facts and Figures:
Bay Bridge East Span Costs Up Close


Giant hoists lift massive concrete deck sections into place

Giant hoists lift massive concrete deck sections into place. (Photo: Bill Hall, Caltrans)

A number of factors have helped push the cost of the Toll Bridge Seismic Retrofit Program to as high as $8.3 billion — $3.2 billion over Caltrans’ 2001 estimate of $5.1 billion. Among the culprits are spiraling steel and concrete prices as well as rising labor costs, along with higher construction insurance fees in the wake of 9/11.

Much of the funding gap can be attributed to the East Span project, which has nearly doubled in cost, going from a 2001 Caltrans estimate of $2.6 billion to a summer 2004 price of $5.1 billion.

The two-mile-long East Span was conceived as two bridges in one: a sleek causeway (referred to as a skyway) traversing the relatively shallow waters stretching west from Oakland, connecting to a showier (and, from an engineering standpoint, more complex) self-anchored suspension span across the deep waters adjacent to Yerba Buena Island. With its asymmetrical profile and graceful tower, the suspension span has been touted as a striking new landmark for the Bay Area.

The suspension segment garnered a lone construction bid of $1.4 billion last spring — double the earlier estimate of $700 million. Even so, this tower portion of the span accounts for just under 50 percent of the Toll Bridge Program cost overruns, with a full 40 percent of the shortfall attributable to the skyway and other portions of the East Span. The remaining funding gap is linked to two other ongoing retrofit projects: the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge (see the update) and the West Span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
— Brenda Kahn

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