NEWS RELEASE
Today’s Date:
August 29, 2014
District:
04-Oakland
Contact:
Leah Robinson-Leach
Brigetta Smith
Phone:
(510) 286-4948
(510) 286-5898
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Celebrates the First of
150 Years of Service
Oakland—This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of the
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge’s opening. Since last Labor Day, nearly 100
million vehicles have crossed the bridge. This structure is not only a major
corridor in the Bay Area but one of the most seismically advanced bridges in
the world.
“The recent Napa earthquake is a reminder of why we built
this unique structure that dramatically
improves safety for all motorists,” said Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty.
The Bay Bridge is just one of thousands of structures in
Caltrans’ Seismic Retrofit Program. Initiated after the Loma Prieta and
Northridge earthquakes, the program has retrofitted or replaced more than 2,200
existing bridges statewide.
The Bay Bridge east span was built to withstand a major
seismic event that occurs once-every-1,500 years. It is also designed to be
quickly reopened to traffic following a catastrophic earthquake. Although it
appears artfully designed from the outside, the bridge interior contains
innovative seismic technology including hinge pipe beams and shear keys that
allow movement but keep the bridge operational during an earthquake. As a
result of this strength and durability, the Bay Bridge is designated as an
emergency lifeline route to be used in disaster response activities.
Crews have already begun to carefully dismantle the old east
span section-by-section, in roughly the reverse order of how it was built in
the mid-1930s. Work is well underway on the first phase of demolition –
removing the east and west halves of the original bridge’s cantilever section –
leaving an 800-foot gap. The removal of the old bridge is scheduled to be
completed by spring 2016.
The bridge is not only an improvement for motorists but for
pedestrians and cyclists as well. Once the demolition of the old span is complete, the path
will be extended to Yerba Buena Island. Final completion is expected by fall
2015.
At 2,047 feet long and 258.33 feet wide, the new east span
of the Bay Bridge is the longest
single-tower, self-anchored suspension span bridge in the world. It is also the
world’s widest bridge, supporting 10 lanes of traffic.
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