From the not-so-great news category:
Inspectors discovered a crack in a crucial component of the east span of the Bay Bridge on Saturday that could jeopardize the planned Tuesday morning reopening of the bridge. The flaw was found in a chainlike steel link that helps hold up the eastern portion of the bridge. The link is almost 2 inches thick and was cracked halfway through, said Ken Brown, senior bridge engineer.
“The crack is significant enough to have closed the bridge on its own,” Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney announced at a news briefing late Saturday night. “We have to make this repair before we reopen the bridge.” (SF Chronicle 9/6/09)
We should hear more about the details of the repairs today and into tomorrow. If it’s not open, there will be some very upset commuters Tuesday morning as thousands of people count on the Bay Bridge to get where they need to be. While it’s better safe than sorry, the local economy sure didn’t need extra inconveniences.
But, uh, BART is pretty good, Muni is great and AC Transit fills the gaps. People who are commuting from further can opt for the San Rafael/GG crossings or the San Mateo crossing from the south. I know it’s highly inconvenient, but I don’t see why a closing would have severe effects.
What really needs to happen is for BART to do spare-the-air-style free service to get people to park in the East Bay and take BART over (hopefully they have the capacity to increase service, but without express tunnels in the Market subway, they may be at their level).