|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Bay Bridge will close at 8 p.m. tonight through early Tuesday morning to complete seismic retrofitting work during the Labor Day holiday weekend.
The bridge will be closed to vehicles starting at 8 p.m. Thursday, continuing through 5 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8.
While the bridge is closed, a 300-foot-long double-deck section of the East Span will be cut and rolled out of the way, 150-feet above Yerba Buena Island (YBI). A new double-deck section will be moved into place to connect the bridge with a short detour.
According to Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesman John Goodwin, the Bay Bridge typically carries between 250,000 and 280,000 vehicles on weekdays, and 200,000 on the weekends, though Labor Day weekend numbers are often lower.
Whether the bridge could reopen earlier than Tuesday at 5 a.m. is still flexible, according to Goodwin.
“If things go well, we would be able to open the bridge early,” he said. “We’re not going to know until we’re deep into the weekend.”
Traffic will flow on the half-mile-long detour connecting the East Span to the YBI Tunnel until the new Bay Bridge opens. The traffic shift will allow crews to demolish a portion of the original bridge, and build a new (permanent) connection from the tunnel to the new East Span.
While BART typically ends service around midnight, they will be running overnight service to the Pleasanton/Dublin station and 13 others from Friday through Monday. For information, visit www.bart.gov or 511.org
For more information on the Bay Bridge construction, visit baybridgeinfo.org