Caltrans Urges Replacement of Bay Bridge Span

The state’s most vulnerable section of freeway--the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge--poses such complex engineering problems it could take until the turn of the century to make the span strong enough to survive a major earthquake, state officials said Wednesday.

In a report to the Legislature, Caltrans Director James van Loben Sels said retrofitting the double-deck bridge would be so much more difficult than first thought that replacing the four-mile eastern span may be more cost-effective.

“You end up with a new bridge built to modern standards and not a patchwork of retrofits on a bridge which was built in the 1930s,” he said at a news conference. “You’ll have a better bridge.”

He said the western span, a suspension bridge, is in “better condition” and can be strengthened by extensive retrofitting.

Van Loben Sels acknowledged that it would take at least four years to complete the new bridge section, but he said that even if the state chooses to retrofit the eastern span it will not make the 1997 deadline originally established for strengthening the eight-mile structure.

He confirmed that the unexpected complexity of the project also had caused cost estimates to soar from $250 million to between $1 billion and $1.3 billion.

“It turns out as we’ve done our studies . . . that the hazards are greater, the vulnerabilities are greater, and the costs are greater,” he said.

In response to questions from reporters, Van Loben Sels said that officials had only known since Dec. 28 that the estimated price tag had increased more than fourfold and that the $650 million earmarked in a proposed bond issue for seismic retrofitting of the state’s toll bridges was now grossly inadequate.

When lawmakers were formulating Proposition 192 in September, he said that officials could only provide them with a very preliminary estimate of the toll bridge retrofitting cost because a thorough engineering analysis of the Bay Bridge still had not been completed.

As the analysis progressed, he said, officials gradually discovered more retrofitting problems than anticipated, but it wasn’t until all the reports were assembled in late December that the final estimate could be tallied.

“I really didn’t know that $650 million was a bad number until . . . we added it all up,” he said. “That’s when I knew I had a problem.”

The disclosure of the new numbers comes six weeks before voters will decide on the $2-billion bond issue to pay for seismic strengthening of 1,209 highway bridges in addition to the state’s seven toll bridges--including the Bay Bridge.

Opponents of the proposal charged that officials had to have known for some time that the retrofitting estimates for the toll bridges were out of line, but had deliberately waited until just before the election to reveal the new numbers.

“I think they had some misguided notion that this will help their campaign to pass Proposition 192 because it shows the need for more funds,” said Jim Knox, an official with the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental group opposing the bond issue proposal.

He said Gov. Pete Wilson and other bond issue proponents want it to pass so that other highway funds that would have been used for retrofitting could be freed up for other transportation projects.

Supporters said they did not know about the new cost estimates until Wednesday. “I don’t think they [Caltrans] were trying to fool anybody,” said D.J. Smith, a transportation consultant for the Yes on Proposition 192 campaign. “This is just a tough problem.”

David Ackerman, finance director of the campaign, said the new figures underscore the need for a bond issue to pay for retrofitting.

Van Loben Sels said the governor and the Legislature would ultimately decide where additional funding for retrofitting will now come from and whether the eastern span of the Bay Bridge will be replaced. He said Caltrans will make a formal recommendation at the end of the year after more studies.

San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, meanwhile, predicted that the cost of retrofitting the Bay Bridge will rise even higher than the $1 billion to $1.3 billion estimated by Caltrans.

But the state ultimately will decide to retrofit the structure, the mayor said, because getting the required environmental approvals would take far too long.

“I suspect that environmentally speaking, you’re talking 25 years downstream before an alternative could be built,” Brown told reporters in San Francisco. “Unless it fell down [and had to be rebuilt], it would take you 25 years. I absolutely think in reality, retrofitting is the only option.”

Brown said he was informed by Van Loben Sels on Tuesday of the escalating cost estimate, but the 30-year veteran of the state Assembly said the news “frankly didn’t surprise me.”