Emergency repairs are getting under way on thirty-two steel-threaded connecting rods on the $6.4-billion San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge’s 10,176-ft.-long eastern span, after California Dept. of Transportation officials revealed the rods snapped after being tensioned. The 525-ft-tall self-anchored suspension (SAS) structure is still expected to open on Labor Day weekend, as scheduled, carrying 280,000 vehicles daily over two stacked 5-lane roadways. American Bridge-Fluor Enterprises is the joint-venture general contractor, with T.Y. Lin International, San Francisco, and Moffatt & Nichol, Long Beach, Calif., as bridge designers.
The broken rods are not considered a structural problem, nor are they expected to delay the opening, says Randy Rentschler, a spokesman with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the regional agency which manages the Caltrans-owned bridge.