Best
Alternative for Bay Bridge Replacement
Is Awarding Current BidIndependent Report
Confirms Caltrans Findings
A report
commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in
its role as the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) affirms the
conclusion drawn earlier this summer by the California Department of
Transportation (Caltrans) that seeking new bids for construction of
a self-anchored suspension span for the eastern portion of the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge—or redesigning the segment as a
conventional cable-stayed suspension span—would delay opening of the
new Bay Bridge eastern span by another one to four years and likely
would boost total project costs by as much as $310 million. The full
Toll Bridge Seismic Retrofit Cost Review Report, prepared for MTC by
Bechtel Infrastructure Corporation, is available on the MTC Web site
at:
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/whats_happening/legislative_update/Bechtel-Report.pdf
MTC commissioned the Bechtel report in June 2004 when
Caltrans sought the Commission’s assistance in analyzing costs and
cost overruns for the entire Toll Bridge Seismic Retrofit Program,
which is designed to strengthen or replace seven state-owned bridges
to improve their safety and performance in the event of an
earthquake. In addition to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the
program involves the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, the Carquinez Bridge,
the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, and
two Southern California bridges. Five of the seven bridge projects
are complete, leaving the two most complicated jobs—the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the Richmond-San Rafael
Bridge—remaining to be finished. The new report was triggered in May
2004 when Caltrans’ contract for building the self-anchored
suspension span came in higher than expected and caused the expected
cost of the toll bridge seismic retrofit program to exceed the
funding made available to it by the California Legislature.
“Public safety is the reason we’re replacing the east
span of the Bay Bridge,” said Rod McMillan, MTC’s manager of Bridge
and Highway Operations. “The surest way to make good on our
responsibility is to award the pending contract.”
McMillan explained that while a new round of bids
would not guarantee lower prices, the resultant delays certainly
would lead to inflationary cost increases on all contracts awarded
as part of the Bay Bridge east span replacement. “We can’t afford to
start from scratch,” he said, noting that parts of the foundation
for the self-anchored suspension segment already are under
construction and that the entire new east span has been designed as
a single unified system to maximize seismic safety.
MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating
agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.