"Who is responsible for the Bay Bridge?" I asked California Gov. Jerry Brown at a San Francisco Chronicle editorial board meeting in May. Before Brown's 2010 election victory, which made him the boss of all Caltrans, Brown was the mayor of Oakland whose political posturing helped delay the retrofit of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, made necessary after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake knocked down a chunk of the span. It took 24 years and $5 billion more than the original budget for the state to complete the $6.4 billion span. Before the new span even opened, the...