Driving across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco? Then get ready for another twist in the road — and more prolonged ramp and lane closures — as Caltrans embarks on the next major stage in its delicate retrofit-by-replacement of the Bay Bridge West Approach.
By John Goodwin
Published: June, 2006
Driving across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco? Then get ready for another twist in the road — and more prolonged ramp and lane closures — as Caltrans embarks on the next major stage in its delicate retrofit-by-replacement of the Bay Bridge West Approach.
Like performing transplant surgery while the patient runs a marathon, works crews are removing and replacing the entire West Approach even as more than 260,000 vehicles each day traverse the mile-long structure through downtown San Francisco. By periodically reconfiguring the lanes, Caltrans is able to maintain traffic flows while moving ahead with the intricate process of swapping the cramped, seismically vulnerable and 70-year-old existing structure for a modern, earthquake-safe freeway.
Beginning June 3, westbound motorists will face a brand new lane alignment as they come off the upper deck of the bridge, with the fourth lane from the left offering an especially tricky departure from the ordinary. Known to traffic engineers as the #4 lane, this and the neighboring #5 lane will both veer right and away from the mainline freeway toward the Fremont Street/Folsom Street off-ramp. And while the #5 lane will offer a straightforward exit-only route, the #4 lane will give drivers the unusual choice of either exiting at Fremont Street, or continuing west and rejoining the freeway several hundred yards downstream.
And, motorists should brace for a new round of major closures during the weekends of June 2-5 and June 9-12.
Demolition of a key segment will require the Bay Bridge to be shut to eastbound traffic — and westbound traffic to be detoured off at Fremont Street and back on at Fourth Street — during the late night and early morning hours of both weekends.
In addition, the First Street and Essex Street on-ramps in San Francisco will be closed throughout these weekends. Motorists also will have to adjust to a new Fifth Street off-ramp, which has been relocated a half-mile down the road.
To help offset the inconvenience to transbay travelers, Caltrans has arranged to pay for 24-hour BART service the first two weekends in June, and will maintain transit service to Treasure Island by establishing a bus shuttle to and from the MacArthur BART station in Oakland.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Bay Area Toll Authority is playing a central role in financing and overseeing the $429 million project, which is now in its fourth year and scheduled for completion in mid-2009.
In addition to the ongoing West Approach work, another project to resurface the pavement on both the upper and lower decks of the West Span of the bridge proper will require various lanes to be closed intermittently between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. through late 2006.
For updates on traffic conditions and traffic alternatives, visit 511.org, or call 511.
