Posted on 02/01/2005 5:48:28 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO (AP) - State transportation officials faced intense questioning Tuesday over their proposal to replace the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge with a structure that is less spectacular but presumably less expensive than the badly over-budget project currenty planned.
Will Kempton, director of the California Department of Transportation, attempted to persuade skeptical lawmakers to scrap the approved design - a so-called single-tower suspension bridge - and instead complete the two-mile span with a towerless concrete skyway.
"We need to get a seismically safe bridge built as soon as possible," Kempton told lawmakers at the Senate Transportation Committee hearing. "The skyway design is the easiest and fastest bridge type to build."
But Kempton and other Caltrans officials faced a barrage of questions about how they arrived at their cost estimates, when the concrete viaduct could be completed and whether it could withstand a major earthquake or terrorist attack.
Kempton's statements were countered by bridge architects and engineers, who told senate committee members that the suspension bridge was safer than the skyway and could be built faster because it has already undergone the lengthy approval process.
"Believe me, you won't have an easy ride if you go with that viaduct," said Donald MacDonald, an architect who helped design the suspension bridge. "Between the two bridges, the suspension bridge is the safer bridge."
Tuesday's hearing will help set the tone for negotiations between the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers over what kind of replacement span should be built and who should shoulder the costs.
Outraged lawmakers and members of the administration have been fighting over the design and cost of the eastern span since it was revealed that the construction budget had mushroomed. Costs have risen from $2.6 billion to $5.1 billion since 2001, when the Legislature approved the suspension design.
Last Wednesday, the same committee grilled Caltrans officials over their handling of the Bay Bridge project. That hearing focused on a state auditor's report that criticized Caltrans for mismanaging the project, underestimating costs and being slow to report cost overruns.
Caltrans officials acknowledged mistakes were made, but attributed the bulk of cost overruns to the suspension design's complexity, repeated delays and rising prices for steel and other materials. On Monday, they released their own report that countered the state auditor's conclusions.
Efforts to replace the east span began after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed a portion of the Bay Bridge, which carries about 275,000 vehicles each day between San Francisco and Oakland.
At issue is the 2,100-foot-span that will connect Yerba Buena Island to a 1.5-mile-long concrete skyway. Construction of the skyway is about 70 percent complete.
Who did the engineering and who is doing the Construction Management on the project?
And the debacle keeps going.
Paging Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden.
Not sure on management or design firms involved.Caltrans is up to their neck in everything anyway.
Here's a link to the local Bay Bridge site. Info is in there as I recall.
http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/
So 3/4 of this sucker is a skyway but we can't do the last 2,100 feet with more skyway. Have I got that right???
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