Posted on 02/02/2005 7:48:32 AM PST by SmithL
As the final Bay Bridge hearing came to a close Wednesday, a clearer picture emerged about how a portion of soaring cost increases would be paid for: higher tolls.
A leading Bay Area lawmaker signaled a hike to $4 is on the negotiating table as the Legislature looks to pay for $3.2 billion in overruns on the Bay Bridge and on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
"It's the reality we will have to absorb," said state Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, who lead the hearings as chairman of the Senate's transportation committee.
However, Torlakson said the governor's previous proposal, which would have raised tolls from $3 to $5, would not be considered. The state has to pay its share, considering Caltrans has been in charge of the project and has been accused of mismanagement, he said.
"The Bay Area should not pay for that," Torlakson said.
The hearing was the latest development in a long-simmering battle over building a replacement for the current Bay Bridge, on which a deck collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
The talk of a funding package moves the debate from an examination of how costs have risen from $1.3 billion in 1997 to almost $6 billion today to a negotiations phase expected to heat up this month.
Bay Area lawmakers are expected to meet in the coming weeks to reach agreement on a fair price for the region to pay before the Legislature begins negotiations with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on a funding package. In the past, overruns essentially have been split between tolls and state funds.
The latest Bay Bridge debate began in August when it was announced that costs on the new eastern span had more than doubled from $2.6 billion to $5.9 billion, which includes $800 million in reserves.
Because no deal was struck on paying for the rising costs, the Schwarzenegger administration in December proposed scrapping the main suspension span portion in favor of a simpler causeway.
The decision became a focal point of Wednesday's hearings and battle lines surrounding the plan seemed to harden.
Caltrans Director Will Kempton said a causeway much like the one already under construction on one half of the bridge is much easier to build. If new permits can easily be obtained, construction can be pushed forward much faster than a more complex suspension span, he said.
"The fact of the matter is we can get a skyway much faster and possibly cheaper than a (suspension span) -- I feel very strongly about that," Kempton said.
Bay Area lawmakers tore into the proposal, arguing that even Caltrans' own assessment says a skyway is riskier than simply sticking with the suspension span approved in 1998.
"Don't you need to design 65 percent of it before accurate estimates are made?" asked state Sen. Mike Machado, D-Stockton.
Just 5 percent of the skyway has been designed, but Kempton said the state could save up to $500 million because it is not as technically difficult to build as a suspension span.
Still, he admitted that any design selection ultimately is a judgment call, and that experts Caltrans has relied on to make a design switch proposal never reached a final answer.
"There was no clear consensus and in many ways we are talking about judgment issues," Kempton said.
Wednesday's hearing offered the first public hearing on the governor's plan to switch designs on the "main span" portion, while construction continues on the skyway portion closer to Oakland.
Caltrans' new cost estimates are off, said the chief executive of the only company to bid on the suspension project last year.
The state Department of Transportation now says the suspension span could cost $1.9 billion, but American Bridge Co. President Robert Luffy argued that his firm submitted a bid for $500 million less.
"I have no idea how you make that leap -- it's beyond me," Luffy said.
Luffy also offered some insight into why the suspension span costs have soared above original estimates of about $740 million. Once his firm dug into Caltrans' estimates, new costs stemming from the need for more work hours and more liability guarantees were quickly uncovered, he said.
"The increase was not due to anything other than clarification of the bid documents -- to find out what's in there, and now we know," Luffy said.
The whole reason behind building a new bridge also surfaced during the hearing, as seismic safety concerns were brought to the fore.
The suspension span has been fully designed and tested, although the skyway design has not reached a point where testing would be accurate. Kempton argued that the skyway could be built to the same safety standards as the suspension span. But the architects of the original design countered that a suspension span ultimately would be safer because it is made from steel, which can bend easily, instead of concrete, which could crack.
"The (suspension span) is a much safer bridge than a brittle concrete viaduct," said Donald McDonald, a San Francisco architect who created the design.
Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Los Angeles, questioned the objectivity of the hearings because Torlakson did not invite some key critics of the suspension span.
"That's not my idea of a balanced hearing," McClintock said.
Torlakson said the hearings were called to give the governor's office a chance to explain why it believes a design switch could save time and money. As the process moves into payment negotiations, Torlakson said he isn't sold on the switch.
He said he would recommend to state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, to stay the course and continue construction of the suspension span design.
"I'm very troubled because we haven't heard a very convincing case (to switch)," Torlakson said.
Locals politicians will get the pretty bridge that they will want, and local drivers will pay more for the ability to use it.
It is a sad state of affairs, however, when all of our modern technology can't produce a bridge and when it was origially built technology was virtually non existent(from a modern viewpoint). This is a disgrace. If all the bickering and backstabbing and ecological crap had existed then, there would never have been a bay bridge.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.