San Francisco Bay Bridge east span opens

After years of delays and cost overruns, the newly built US$6.4 billion eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened with few problems other than the traffic snarls that were common around the toll plaza of the old span. The single pylon suspension span replaces a structure that was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It is designed to withstand the strongest earthquake estimated by seismologists to occur at the site over a 1,500-year period.
September 5, 2013 Read time: 1 min
After years of delays and cost overruns, the newly built US$6.4 billion eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened with few problems other than the traffic snarls that were common around the toll plaza of the old span.

The single pylon suspension span replaces a structure that was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It is designed to withstand the strongest earthquake estimated by seismologists to occur at the site over a 1,500-year period.

One of the busiest spans in the United States, the single-towered, 634 metre long self-anchored main span is more than twice the length of the previous record holders, Japan's Konohana Bridge and South Korea's Yeongjong Grand Bridge, according to the Structurae engineering database.

It has been completed six years behind schedule at five times over budget. It will be used by some 280,000 daily commuters.
Charging, Tolling & RUC

Related Content

  • Toll plaza conversion will reduce congestion on I-95
    April 17, 2012
    In an effort to reduce congestion in a busy corridor for motorists and commercial freight carriers, Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) appointed TransCore as the lead integrator on a project to convert the Newark Toll Plaza on I-95, adding two new electronic highway speed lanes on both the north and south bound plazas. Plaza throughput is now about to jump from 250-300 transactions per lane per hour to an estimated 2,000. The US$32 million “shovel ready” project was fully funded through the Amer
    Read More
  • Zendrive: lunchtime driving in San Francisco riskier than rush hour
    January 23, 2018
    Lunch-hour driving across the San Francisco Bay Area between 11.00am and 2.00pm is riskier than morning and evening rush hour commutes with more than 50% of routes presenting a greater risk to drivers during lunch hour. These latest findings come from Zendrive’s Bay Area Commute Safety Snapshot which also revealed that the San Mateo Bridge is overall more dangerous during morning commutes between 6.00am to 11.00am.
    Read More
  • TransCore to upgrade Delaware River bridge toll system
    October 1, 2015
    The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) has awarded TransCore a US$24.9 million multi-year design-build-maintain contract for a complete overhaul of the agency’s toll collection system infrastructure. The modernisation project will include virtually every aspect of the agency’s toll system: manual cash collections, conventional toll-lane E-ZPass transactions, highway-speed open-road tolling, and future all-electronic tolling at the Scudder Falls replacement bridge.
    Read More
  • Politicisation of US transportation funding
    October 13, 2015
    Andrew Bardin Williams looks at how a political stalemate and a series of short-term fixes is undermining America’s highway funding and curtailing long-term planning. It was a week before the deadline to renew funding for the Highway Trust Fund, and the clock was ticking.
    Read More

Highlighted Content