Index of links

News

“Bay Bridge Fix Can’t Wait, Say Geologists” Span needs repair to avoid collapsing in major quake, they say. By Glen Martin, Michael Cabanatuan, San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, September 16, 1999.

“Collision Course,’ Lucia Hwang’s essay on the questionable planning and budgetary practices of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, S.F. Bay Guardian, August 18, 1999.

“Crooked Bridge,” Dan Zoll's feature article, S.F. Bay Guardian, July 15, 1998.

Jerry Brown’s opinion. Brown writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, June 24, 1998, denouncing an insiders' game, calling for an open international competition for bridge-design concepts, and a world-class bridge for Oakland.

Rail initiative: Citizens of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville voted overwhelmingly for consideration of rail on the bridge after it was ruled out by the Legislature and the MTC. San Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 1998.

Senator Kopp’s anti-rail initiative (op-ed) in the San Francisco Chronicle, September 4, 1998.

Second Tower? story, a fabricated issue, in the San Francisco Examiner.

Report: Caltrans allegedly ignored warnings on freeway. About ignored warnings and a broken, sinking freeway over a subsiding aquifer. San Francisco Chronicle, March 29, 1999.

Why is the New Bay Bridge Plan Collapsing? Op-ed explanation by Coman and Feher, San Francisco Chronicle, February 23, 1999.

Dashka Slater article

http://guest.xinet.com/bike/design/express.html

Organizations

Bicycle access for Bay Area bridges.

FIDIC (Fédération Internationale des Ingénieurs-Conseils) An international federation of national associations of consulting engineers. The members of each national association are pledged to comply with FIDIC’s code of ethics which calls for impartial advice, competence and fair competition.

Modern Transit Society explains why rail on the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge is a great idea whose time has come (again).

Proposed Tagus River Estuary Bridge. An example of an environmental disaster caused by corruption and bad planning. Not to be confused with the Tagus River Suspension Bridge.

Government

Caltrans website on the SFOBB east span.

Caltrans website: SFOBB Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) prepared in 1998. A federal EPA agent testifying at a public meeting in Oakland called this the worst DEIS he had ever seen.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s site.

USGS news release on composition of bay soils.

Corporate Sites

American Piledriving Inc. did retrofit work on the SFOBB eastern approach.

T.Y. Lin International is the private engineering services firm coordinating design work for the replacement eastern span.

Ben Gerwick, who took credit as one of the principal designers of the asymmetrical self-anchored suspension bridge.

Other bridges

Akashi Kaikyo Bridge is currently the world’s longest suspension bridge, with foundations that go down to bedrock through 250 feet of soft sand and gravel. It is designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 8.5, far more than the 7.2 to 8.0 planned by Caltrans for the new east span of the Bay Bridge.

Tagus River Bridge Within a Bridge—suspension bridge in Portugal (circa 1960) outfitted with a new railway deck. The original bridge foundations go down through soft materials to bedrock at a depth of 270 feet. Caltrans engineers have said that it is impossible for them to do the same thing in the San Francisco Bay 40 years later.

Chung Yang cable-stayed bridge in Taiwan built on soft ground with 300 foot deep piles.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bridge—a viaduct designed to cross at Richmond-San Rafael?

Great Belt Bridge in Denmark.

Humber Bridge in England.

Stretto di Messina Bridge—A suspension bridge which could span Oakland to Yerba Buena Island without touching water. It will carry rail and automobiles, and withstand a 7.1 earthquake with no damage at all.

T.Y. Lin’s Proposed Alaska-Siberia Bridge—a fifty-mile bridge that would join Asia and North America.

 For those who are interested in the bottom line, this is it.