Nov 2, 2009 2:30 pm US/Eastern
San Francisco Bay Bridge Reopens In Nearly A Week
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS) ―
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CHP cars are lined up at the Bay Bridge toll plaza ahead of the bridge reopening Monday.
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Pieces of Bay Bridge that fell onto the upper deck Tuesday night.
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One of the cars damaged during the Bay Bridge cable break.
CBS
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is open to traffic again following emergency repairs, ending days of frustration for Northern California commuters.
California Department of Transportation spokesman Bart Ney had warned that drivers should prepare to find alternate routes for the Monday morning commute then announced the span would reopen.
Engineers have been working furiously to complete repairs to a section of the bridge where two rods and a crossbar fell into rush-hour traffic lanes Tuesday.
Ney says workers made significant progress overnight to assure the bridge's safety and were doing final inspections.
The first cars drove through the reopened Bay Bridge toll plaza Monday, nearly a week after a failed repair closed the bridge and paralyzed traffic on alternate routes, reports CBS station KPIX-TV.
A phalanx of California Highway patrol cars led the traffic onto the bridge just before 9:00 a.m. Monday.
Ney announced at the second of two news conferences Monday morning that final inspections were wrapped up and traffic was going to be allowed onto the bridge within the half-hour.
The bridge has been closed since Tuesday night after two rods and a crossbar installed over Labor Day weekend to repair a crack failed, sending 5,000 pounds of metal into rush-hour traffic. Cars were damaged, but no one was seriously hurt.
Caltrans crew members, material providers and inspectors have been working for nearly a week to repair the section. Repairs to the damaged crossbar were completed over the weekend, but they apparently weren't holding up to the initial stress tests.
Ney said a break-through came when workers were able to get the steel into alignment early Monday morning, which led to successful stress tests.
It was already the longest bridge closure since the span was shut down for a month after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and commuters on Monday morning were faced with another grueling commute around a closed bridge.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit Agency said it was running longer trains to handle the bigger load of commuters Monday.
Meantime, large trucks were put in position early Monday to do final bridge stress tests and visual inspections, Ney said.
Ney said much of the heavy construction equipment had already been cleared, and some large contractor vehicles were being used for the stress tests. Inspectors were watching for vibrations in the repair work, but so far none had been detected.
Ney warned that the final inspections would dictate when the bridge re-opens.
"Safety is our priority," Ney said. "Clearly we have taken our time with implementing this. All along had great participation with third party reviews."
He said Caltrans would likely do daily inspections once the bridge reopens by closing lanes during off-peak hours to examine the entire system.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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