Challenges

Debate Challenge Coman Feher issued a challenge to debate proponents of MTC’s approved design.

Second Tower? This letter, sent to the Examiner editors, was meant to correct a disinformative article. It was not published.

State Assemblyman Don Perata called for legislation for a new  bridge design, claiming the public was ignored.


Debate Challenge

February 22, 1999
The San Francisco Chronicle

Editor:

Your editorial about the Bay Bridge replacement project (Chronicle, February 22) exhibits a clear lack of knowledge of many relevant facts. After being involved and thoroughly examining all of the issues surrounding this flawed project, we're afraid we have arrived at the opposite conclusion of that expressed in your editorial supporting the MTC's recommended design. The serious issues of seismic safety, fraudulent process and mediocrity of the design are documented at www.oaklandbridge.com.

Since it behooves the media to accurately inform the public, we hereby challenge any defender of this ill-conceived, dangerous and unworthy proposal to a public debate, one not limited or constrained by the heavy-handed tactics of Bay Bridge Task Force Chair Mary King. Perhaps the local public radio or television stations would like to be hosts of this challenge.

Daniel Coman
Rick Feher
Coman Feher Associates
Sacramento

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Second Tower?

Gerald D. Adams' Examiner article from July 5, 1998 quotes "bridge designers" (actually advisory panel members) who deride the idea of adding a second tower to the bridge. The issue appears to be invented as diversion and obfuscation.

July 8, 1998
The San Francisco Examiner

Editors:

Gerald Adams' Sunday Metro feature "2nd tower?" is about an issue which was never an issue. None of the opponents of the current bridge proposal has suggested building a second useless tower. An engineering advisor is quoted as saying that a second tower would be "superfluous, extraordinarily expensive and for no purpose except for throwing away money." This is in fact an accurate assessment of the first tower, which was added to the viaduct as an aesthetic embellishment.

The MTC's Bay Bridge Task Force approved a self-anchored suspension bridge with a single tower supported on piles near Yerba Buena Island. The tower was not to be embedded in rock as depicted in a diagram credited to the designers, nor would there be a grounded "west anchorage" as indicated. A self-anchored suspension bridge is anchored to the ends of its twin decks, which consequently must remain rigid during earthquake motions to avoid catastrophic failure.

Daniel Coman
Rick Feher
Sacramento

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Public Ignored by MTC on the Bridge Design

State Assemblyman Don Perata urged the MTC to delay approval of the bridge as designed. Perata intended to place the matter before Bay Area voters in November but was challenged by the Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, Quentin Kopp, who said he would "toss it [the bill] out of here" if it landed in his committee. Assemblyman Perata is quoted in a San Francisco Examiner story as saying that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission inexplicably ignored concerns expressed by local government officials, citizens, and architectural, engineering and environmental experts.

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