As California Department of Transportation Construction Manager Douglas Coe tells it, the key to success on a very complicated seismic retrofit of the Antioch Toll Bridge is the mastering of the three B’s – birds, bearings and bracing.
Rebuilt in 1978 from the original 1926 edition, the steel-plate girder, 1.8-mi bridge spans the San Joaquin River from the East Bay city of Antioch in Contra Costa County to the Sherman Island wildlife refuge in Sacramento County along State Route 160. It has one lane in each direction with bicycle and pedestrian access and traffic numbers about 15,000 vehicles a day.