The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge stood empty Friday as retrofitting work began. Its reopening had been set for Tuesday.
SAN FRANCISCO — Commuters in the San Francisco Bay Area were bracing for an arduous commute on Tuesday morning after slow-going repairs to a cracked support forced the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to remain closed an extra day.
The bridge has been shut to traffic since Thursday night as part of a project to retrofit its eastern section, a portion of which collapsed during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.
That work, which involved replacing a 300-foot span with a detour, was finished on schedule. But during a routine inspection on Saturday, workers discovered an unrelated crack in a circular link, known as an eyebar, also on the eastern span. Workers toiled all day Monday to make repairs, but more time was needed, said Randy Iwasaki, the director of the California Department of Transportation.
“We’re going to need your patience for one more day,” he said. The new target for the reopening of the bridge, which connects San Francisco and the western peninsula to Oakland and suburban communities to the east, is Wednesday at 5 a.m., a full 24 hours later than expected.
Other local transit agencies had already made contingency plans in the event that the bridge did not reopen on time.
Ferry companies added boats, in some cases tripling the number of trips across the bay. The Bay Area Rapid Transit, the region’s major commuter railway, planned to run longer trains on Tuesday. The Transportation Department advised people to consider carpools and even telecommuting. The Bay Bridge handles about 260,000 vehicles a day.
Engineers said the damaged eyebar had probably cracked in the last two years, since the bridge’s last inspection. And while the repairs were taking time, Mr. Iwasaki said the work was worth it.
“When you return to this bridge,” he said, “it’s going to be safer than when you left it.”Source