At Long Last, the Tower Begins to Rise From the Bay

Piece by piece, the new Bay Bridge East Span’s signature element — the self-anchored suspension span, or SAS in engineers’ shorthand — is taking shape at an impressive clip.

In the foreground, the Left Coast Lifter crane transfers the tower sections from the ship to barges one by one, while in the distance, the twin decks of the new East Span Skyway glint in the sun and seem to beckon the tower pieces to their final position adjacent to Yerba Buena Island. ©2010 Barrie Rokeach www.rokeachphoto.com

Bay Bridge East Span Update

By Brenda Kahn
Published: August, 2010

Piece by piece, the new Bay Bridge East Span’s signature element — the self-anchored suspension span, or SAS in engineers’ shorthand — is taking shape at an impressive clip. Significant progress has been made since the first steel deck segments arrived from Shanghai in January of this year. Already, 12 of the wing-shaped pieces have been carefully lifted and bolted into place at the construction zone adjacent to Yerba Buena Island.

With the SAS’ twin, side-by-side decks well under way, attention is shifting temporarily to the element that will give the span its iconic profile — the tapering steel tower that will reach 525-feet toward the sky. In July, the first tower pieces arrived in the Bay after a three-week journey across the Pacific. In heritage they are siblings of the deck sections, since both are being fabricated by the Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co. Ltd.

This first tower shipment consists of the bottom tier of the quartet of legs that will join together to create a single tower designed to resist the seismic forces of “The Big One.” As Bay Crossings went to press, officials from Caltrans, the Bay Area Toll Authority and the California Transportation Commission — which are working together to build and finance the monumental new East Span — were making plans for a ceremonial event marking the placement of the first massive tower leg on the equally massive foundation waiting for it in the Bay. It will be a delicate, painstaking process, requiring several hours just for the tilting up of the 1,190-ton tower piece from its horizontal position on the barge.

While the remaining first-tier tower shafts are being bolted into place and linked with cross braces, a process that will likely take over two weeks, the next shipment of deck sections will be making its way across the Pacific Ocean. More deck and tower shipments will follow in the coming months, bringing closer the day with the SAS will meet up with the already completed East Span Skyway that reaches out 1.2 miles from the Oakland shoreline.

Shown in the process of being lifted off the boat and onto barges, these four segments will lock together to form the first tier of the East Span’s single tower. ©2010 Barrie Rokeach www.rokeachphoto.com