Posted on 06/23/2005 9:29:50 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO - The Bay Bridge will get a fancy design after all, but the region's motorists will get stuck with paying most of the span's $3.7 billion in cost overruns, under a legislative deal reached Thursday night.
The accord calls for bridge tolls on all state-owned Bay Area spans to jump from $3 to $4 beginning Jan. 1, 2007 and the state to kick in $630 million for the project, which has been saddled with delays and escalating prices since its inception seven years ago.
No further toll increases are planned. Rather, the balance of the $6.3 billion estimated tab of Bay Bridge's new eastern span will be covered by refinancing toll debt. That is expected to generate another $500 million.
In addition, any future cost overruns to build the suspension span must be covered by bridge tolls.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, signed off on the agreement shortly after 6 p.m. today, according to a source familiar with the talks. It still must be approved by the state Legislature.
The deal drew mixed reaction from Bay Area transportation officials and lawmakers, who said they are relieved construction can move forward but had hoped the state would pay a greater portion of the bridge's cost. The project is scheduled to be completed by 2011.
"I think it would be a really good thing, and it's way past time," said Mark DeSaulnier, a Contra Costa County supervisor and member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. He said he had yet to be briefed on the plan but called it "good news."
The agreement, should it hold up, would end 10 months of contentious negotiations between the Schwarzenegger administration and Bay Area legislators. At issue was whether to streamline the design and how to divide the new costs between the area's toll payers and the state.
The Republican governor shocked the region's lawmakers last August when his administration announced the bridge's price tag, previously anticipated to be $2.6 billion, had nearly doubled. The administration blamed the run-up primarily on the bridge's exotic design -- a self-anchored suspension from a tall tower with sweeping cables that is envisioned as an elegant complement to the world-renowned Golden Gate Bridge.
But Bay Area lawmakers pointed to other factors, including poor management by state transportation officials. The state underestimated construction costs and used far more high-cost private engineers than originally forecast, they charged.
Schwarzenegger went on to commission a report by a panel of experts and then to recommend dumping the original design for a skyway -- a highway on stilts. That angered area transportation officials and Bay Area advocates who argued a signature span fit the region's wine-and-cheese image. And because toll payers have been paying for the suspension span since 2001.
Talks between administration officials and top Democrats went nowhere for months, as the bridge's cost continued to rise and a new controversy erupted over whether welds on the first segment of the span were safe. Transportation officials determined the welds met safety standards, despite allegations from workers that the job had been botched because of the push to meet construction deadlines.
Perata and Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, led negotiations with the governor, and conceded from the time they began that higher tolls would be necessary. The only question was when and how much the tolls would climb.
Schwarzenegger pushed the Bay Area to front all the overruns, meaning a $5 toll hike as soon as this year. The region's lawmakers, however, said they wanted the state to cover more overruns right away, thereby allowing a toll hike to be postponed until as late as 2009.
Last summer, the MTC told lawmakers that a toll hike in 2009 would create $1.9 billion through financing and selling bonds. A state contribution of $800 million would be needed right away, MTC officials said.
Under today's agreement, less state money is required because more toll money would be available sooner. A $1 toll hike in 2007 that likely runs for 30 years could provide $2.1 billion by financing and selling bonds.
The bridge is currently forecast to cost $6.3 billion, which includes $800 million in contingencies.
Transportation officials say the self-anchored suspension segment of the project can be bid out and awarded by January, if the deal is passed by June 30.
Art Nicola, a Bay Point resident who said he occasionally drives across the Bay Bridge, applauded the region's legislators for fighting for the more aesthetically pleasing structure.
"Personally, I'd like to see the original suspension span design. The Bay Area is a world class locale and it just doesn't seem right to go on the cheap," Nicola said.
I don't know anything about the Bay Bridges; however, they are replacing the Woodrow Wilson bridge on I-95 outside of Washington DC. It is a 2.5 billion dollar project that is on time and 140 million UNDER budget. It has been a pain in the b*** because of the traffic snarls; however, they are making great progress.
My wife and I are moving from the area in the next few weeks (going to Memphis, yeah) and away from the gridlock in the DC area. I hope this does something to alleviate the traffic snarls in the area.
For more info:
http://www.pbbulletin.com/Volume20_Issue_3/html/lead_ww_bridge.html
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Oh I am a lot more peeved about it for more than just the reason I posted, but I was trying to stay on topic.
Well what do you expect? You let artsy fartsy folks say the bridge must be an eyepiece... so they come up with some impossible design.. then trying to impliment it you realize its impossible... try to go back to just a nondescript bridge and the same artsy fartsy folks once again say no, it must be pretty....
I'm just amazed they haven't turned the damned thing into a tunnel, or water tube yet.... with glass so you cal\n slow down and enjoy watching the sea lions crap as you drive through....
Well, last year Perata was conceding no such thing. He wanted the cost overruns to be covered in the state budget, and said it was unfair for Bay Area drivers to pay the toll alone since the Bay Bridge was a resource that benefitted the whole state.
Yes, he actually said that. ;)
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