Opening soon..

The new east span of the Bay Bridge will open after Labor Day weekend, an oversight committee decided Thursday morning - a decision that will require the bridge to close for five days beginning Aug. 28.

Officials said the bridge would close at 8 p.m. Aug. 28 and reopen at 5 a.m. Sept. 3.
"The old bridge is not safe in case of a major earthquake," said Steve Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. "Our interest is moving traffic onto the new span as quickly as possible."

The move came just days after federal officials gave their approval for a temporary plan to shore up the snapped high-strength steel rods that hold seismic stability structures together. Three independent authorities also found that the fix is more than adequate to allow traffic to move onto the new bridge while the permanent retrofit is completed, which is expected to be done by December.

"We see no reason to delay the opening of the bridge to traffic," said Vincent Mammano of the Federal Highway Administration.

Thursday's decision came after an oversight panel made up of the top executives of the Bay Area Toll Authority, Caltrans and the California Transportation Commission spent the past few months flip-flopping on a fix and an opening date for the $6.4 billion span - first saying the repairs would push the opening until December before another panel came up with a quick fix now endorsed by federal officials.

Scheduling the closure for Labor Day weekend, when traffic is at its lightest, will enable the work to move faster. About 2,500 truck trips will be needed to move paving materials from Pleasanton to the bridge, and the traffic congestion of a nonholiday week would slow everything.

"There would be a lot of conflicts whenever the work was done," Heminger said. But because the original planning was for a holiday closure and reopening, "it's not like we're going to start tomorrow with two weeks of work to get the planning done."

The work itself will take place at both ends of the new span, as crews work to connect it with the existing roadway. But while the work is time-consuming, it's not especially complicated, which makes it more likely that the crews can meet that early Tuesday morning deadline.

"It's pretty pedestrian work, compared to the other technical work we've done," said Andrew Fremier
, deputy director of the toll authority. "It's concrete and asphalt."

Although cars are expected to be rolling over the new bridge by Sept. 3, plenty of work remains to be done. Caltrans has put a priority on the structural work needed to make the span ready for traffic, but will still be finishing some of the detail work.

None of that work, however, is expected to impede traffic. The retrofit work, for example, will all be done under the bridge deck, with workers reaching the area from the water.

The bicycle and pedestrian path also is a work in progress. While a temporary trestle will be installed to allow walkers and cyclists access to the bridge as soon as it is opened, it will be more than two years before they will be able to reach Yerba Buena Island.