Bye Bye Bay B.

Today was my last trip over the Bay Bridge.  Well, half of it anyway.  The half that didn’t fall down in the ‘89 earthquake.  The ugly half with the bolted metal that reminds me of the insides of battleships daddy took us to tour on vacation.

They closed the bridge at 8 o’clock tonight and it won’t be open again until Tuesday morning.  If you want to drive to the city, you either have to go north to the Richmond bridge, down through rich people land where my Uncle’s yacht club is and across the Golden Gate bridge, or east through the hills to the land of dry, brown hills and take the San Mateo bridge, and then drive back west to the City.  But BART’s running 24 hours for the weekend.  That’s nice!

It’s been really interesting watching them work on the new bridge since June.  Every day I look out the bus window on my way to work and try to see if I notice any changes.  I’m still not sure how everything will work out.  For most of the way, from Oakland to somewhere in the middle of the water, the new bridge is on the right.  It’s not two stories like the current bridge; it’s more like two separate bridges next to each other, one for each direction.  Then, suddenly, the new bridge is on the left, and it is two stories!

I have no idea how these two are going to meet, though I know there’s some talk about rotating a whole bunch of metal high up in the air.  What I’m really wondering is if the new bridge will actually be ready on Tuesday.  Part of the right hand side looks completed.  The direction towards Oakland even has a wide area separated from the roadway by white metal railings.  I think it’s for bikers and pedestrians.  It has little white metal benches every so often.  But the bridge just ends, in the middle of the Bay, with some sort of rods sticking out of the underside.

There’s a big span of water and then a frame.  Just a frame!  Just raw, rust-colored metal.  No concrete, nothing but metal!  And then one little tiny concrete post sticking up a bit after the metal, with rods sticking out of it like the end of the completed part.  How on earth is that going to be a full bridge in 4 days?  Let alone a full bridge that somehow turns from 1 story into two and connects to the piece on the other side of the existing bridge?!

I can’t wait for Tuesday, to see what it all looks like.  And to ride over the new, earthquake-proof (yeah, right) bridge.

 

P.s. if you’re interested in following the progress, the Bay Bridge is on Twitter, @BayBridge