Governor looks to maintain cautious approach

by Brian Leubitz

Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle has a way with a video camera like few else. She readily acknowledges the less than high tech camera work, even going so far as to name her video series “Shaky Hand Productions.” But she has a way of being in the right place at the right time to ask some very pertinent questions.

Yesterday she posted another such video, this time a dimly lit interview of Gov. Brown. He covered the drought and the frustrating Bay Bridge situation. On mandatory water restrictions he hewed his refrain of letting local governments ride lead:

I like to focus attention and responsibility on local government, local school districts, whenever possible. So I certainly encourage every local community to do exactly what they need … and when it becomes necessary for the state to take over and actually order (rationing) … I’ll certainly do that. “

Cruise on over to her blog post to get the full transcript. Looks like he’ll officially kick his campaign off soon.

Bridge faces delays of up to several months

by Brian Leubitz

The bad bolts on the Bay Bridge now mean that the post Labor Day kickoff will be delayed for weeks, perhaps months:

The Bay Bridge’s broken bolts have busted the schedule, forcing the construction team to postpone for weeks or months the opening of the Bay Area’s new signature bridge while critics lambast the builders for missteps that contributed to the delay.

Citing a longer than expected timetable to retrofit the seismic stabilizers where key anchor rods snapped in March, the span will not open to traffic immediately the morning after Labor Day as planned. No new opening date has been set. (Lisa Vorderbrueggen / BANG)

Bay Area legislators are understandably quite miffed. The current eastern span of the bridge is seismically unstable, and will likely come crashing down in a rather devastating fashion if we have any sort of major earthquake. It certainly would have been nice to see that sort of risk eliminated as soon as possible, however, to ensure the longterm stability of the bridge, the delay probably makes sense. The new span is supposed to last 150 years, and cost untold billions to get this far. It would be almost silly to get anxious over a few months at this point.

However, that being said, the money is real, and the delays are real. And all should have been avoidable.

“Heads should roll,” said Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Mark DeSaulnier, D-“Concord. “It’s unconscionable that people have been exposed to so much risk of an earthquake on the old the bridge and paid so much for the new one. People need to be held accountable on these big projects.”

A new report highlighted some of the failures that kept piling upon each other to bring about the delay, but as Sen. DeSaulnier remarked, there is a little desire to find somebody to blame for the mess.

Governor remarks about construction failures that “shit happens”

by Brian Leubitz

The new eastern span of the Bay Bridge has been a long time in coming. It’s been due for replacement since the Loma Prieta earthquake way back in 1989, and since then there has been much discussion about visual aesthetics, “landmark” status, cost and even some chatter about just getting it done. The bridge was set to open in August, but that may get bumped because of some faulty welds. Gov. Brown was waxing philosophical about the issue.

“Don’t know if it’s a setback. I mean, look, shit happens.”

“There are very professional engineers that are looking

at this thing, and when they’re ready to give us their report, I think the public will be satisfied,” he said.

Three dozen cracked bolts — discovered by Caltrans bridge engineers in mid-March — on the new bridge’s single tower suspension span could throw a wrench into those plans. Administration officials may be forced to delay the opening of the new span of the Bay Bridge — in the works since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake — depending on the results of a study to be released Wednesday. (Steve Harmon / BANG)

Shit. It Does Happen. However, for the time being Brown, who had a lot to do with the planning as Mayor of Oakland, is looking forward to a big party to go along with the opening. We’ll find out more later today about whether it will go off as smoothly as he would like it.

I had my bluetooth headphones on as I was at the gym this morning, and I got a text message just before 7am. It’s not really a common occurrence, so I go over and check it out.  And sure enough, it was the alert-sf message announcing that the Bay Bridge had reopened at 7am.  

Cars led by a phalanx of California Highway Patrol officers began crossing less than two hours after the reopening time that Caltrans originally set when it closed the bridge Thursday evening to remove a section of the eastern span and install a temporary detour. And traffic resumed well ahead of the 5 a.m. Wednesday reopening that Caltrans scheduled Monday, after the crack in the steel link, called an eyebar, had been discovered over the weekend.

“Through the night, the crews have worked nonstop – for almost 70 hours – and were able to complete repair work on the damaged eyebar beam,” Caltrans Director Randy Iwasaki said at a hastily called news conference on Yerba Buena Island at 6:10 a.m. “The bridge has been inspected, and it’s safer than it was when we closed it.” (SF Gate 9/8/09)

Sometimes you just luck into something, and that appears to be the case here. Had this inspection taken place some other time, the Bridge would have had to be shut down immediately to be repaired.  The crews were able to make the fix while the detour was being installed, so really, we only lost a few additional hours.

However, given that CalTrans had stated that the Bridge was going to be closed all day, BART is still vastly overcrowded as are the other various bridges across the Bay. Apparently the San Mateo Bridge had extended delays this morning.

Nonetheless, thanks to the CalTrans crews who made the process relatively smooth this weekend.

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.

While San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom stepped up, others ducked. The lapse of time between the Cosco Busan oil spill being declared a “42 gallon spill” and a “58,000 gallon spill” isn’t the only timeline scandal. I was at the joint command press conference later in the day where the fact it took 26 hours from the time of the collision until the Captain was tested for alcohol kept coming up. The snickers from the press (which included 18 TV cameras) made it clear that “he had left the ship” was an answer that begs many, many questions.

The press conference was at Fort Mason, following it I walked the two mile stretch of the Embarcadero down to where I took the first shots of it hitting SF yesterday. Everywhere, you could see it in the water. Accountability time.