New Bay Bridge East Span Tower Peeks Above Yerba Buena Island

After 28 days crossing the wintery Pacific Ocean from Shanghai, the third shipment of tower sections for the self-anchored suspension span (SAS) of the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge East Span passed under the Golden Gate and into San Francisco Bay on December 13. Also loaded aboard the Zhen Hua 19 were two more steel deck sections for the new span, and first pieces of the bicycle/pedestrian path to be delivered to the job site.

The SAS tower is actually comprised of four individual legs, each of which is made up of five vertical sections, or lifts. This third lift contains four legs that are 102-feet-tall and weigh 551 tons each. Once this third installment is placed, the tower will stand 374 feet tall – 40 feet above the high-point of Yerba Buena Island, and nearly three-quarters of the way toward its final height of 525 feet.

Contractor American Bridge/Fluor plans to start the erection of these tower sections as early as Wednesday, and to work around the clock until complete, in time for Christmas. The painstaking process involves tilting each leg from horizontal to vertical on a specially-designed barge positioned at the tower’s base, and then hoisting the legs over 400 feet into the air before lowering and bolting them atop the tower.

Meanwhile, the SAS road decks have been taking shape since February, with 18 deck sections – nine eastbound and nine westbound – already in place. The deck sections that arrived with yesterday’s shipment are each almost 160 feet in length, and weigh over 1,000 tons each. When the bridge opens, there will be 28 deck sections in total.

The Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) — along with Caltrans and the California Transportation Commission — is part of Toll Bridge Program Oversight Committee (TBPOC), which has been overseeing the seismic retrofit of state-owned toll bridges in the Bay Area, including the Bay Bridge. BATA is also responsible for collecting bridge tolls and funding the retrofits.

— Karin Betts