Bay Bridge East Span Update
By Brenda Kahn
Published: August, 2010
With the SAS’ twin, side-by-side decks well under way, attention is shifting temporarily to the element that will give the span its iconic profile — the tapering steel tower that will reach 525-feet toward the sky. In July, the first tower pieces arrived in the Bay after a three-week journey across the Pacific. In heritage they are siblings of the deck sections, since both are being fabricated by the Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co. Ltd.
This first tower shipment consists of the bottom tier of the quartet of legs that will join together to create a single tower designed to resist the seismic forces of “The Big One.” As Bay Crossings went to press, officials from Caltrans, the Bay Area Toll Authority and the California Transportation Commission — which are working together to build and finance the monumental new East Span — were making plans for a ceremonial event marking the placement of the first massive tower leg on the equally massive foundation waiting for it in the Bay. It will be a delicate, painstaking process, requiring several hours just for the tilting up of the 1,190-ton tower piece from its horizontal position on the barge.
While the remaining first-tier tower shafts are being bolted into place and linked with cross braces, a process that will likely take over two weeks, the next shipment of deck sections will be making its way across the Pacific Ocean. More deck and tower shipments will follow in the coming months, bringing closer the day with the SAS will meet up with the already completed East Span Skyway that reaches out 1.2 miles from the Oakland shoreline.
