On Oct. 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake brought down a chunk of the upper deck of the Oakland-Bay Bridge onto the lower deck. Anamafi Moala Kalushia, 23, of Berkeley died. Twenty years later, some 280,000 cars use the bridge daily -- and it still isn't safe. 
In that time, Iraq has been in two wars and replaced bombed bridges over the Tigris River twice. In little more than a year, Minneapolis rebuilt a bridge that collapsed and killed 13 in 2007. In 1994, when the Northridge earthquake destroyed freeway overpasses in Southern California, GOP Gov. Pete Wilson had the two Santa Monica Freeway bridges restored within 84 days.
The construction of the east span of the Bay Bridge, however, is not expected to be finished until 2013. Granted, the above projects were smaller. Then again, it only took three-and-a-half years to construct the Oakland Bay Bridge.
Why is it taking so long? Engineers continued seismic work on the bridge after it reopened. Then in 1996, experts concluded that it made more sense to build a new east span than to retrofit a structure anchored atop Douglas firs when it was built in the 1930s.
In 1997, Wilson suggested a simple single-level viaduct from Oakland to Yerba Buena Island as a cheap and fast way to build a bridge before the next big quake.
Bay Area pols bristled at the notion of a plain-Jane span. In a Chronicle opinion piece, then-Oakland Mayor-elect Jerry Brown advocated for "a spectacular structure that expresses the daring of human ingenuity and symbolizes the splendor of Oakland and the East Bay."
If Brown and his ilk had been in a hurry -- because a big earthquake could end hundreds of lives within minutes, destroy the span and ruin local commerce for months thereafter -- you might understand their push for a more, well, phallic bridge design.
Continued... |