San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge won’t reopen for Tuesday morning commute as crews fix crack

Bay Bridge won’t reopen for Tuesday morning rush

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will not reopen in time for the Tuesday morning commute, leaving thousands of drivers to find alternate ways to get into the city and setting the stage for possible gridlock on other bridges and roads.

Crews won’t be able to fix the crack that was discovered in the span Saturday in time for the bridge’s scheduled reopening at 5 a.m. Tuesday, said Randy Iwasaki, director of the California Department of Transportation.

Iwasaki said crews are aiming to complete the work by 5 a.m. Wednesday.

“We are going to need your patience for one more day until essential repairs are completed,” he said at a news conference Monday afternoon.

The 73-year-old bridge, which carries about 260,000 vehicles a day between San Francisco and heavily populated cities to its east, was closed over the Labor Day weekend so a football-field-sized, 3,300-ton section of the eastern span could be cut out and replaced with a new double-deck section. The work was part of a seismic upgrade and had to be completed 150 feet above the ground.

The new section connects the bridge with a short detour that will be used until a new east span is completed by 2013.

Crews used the opportunity to inspect the bridge and found a 2-inch-thick steel link cracked halfway through.

Tuesday’s closure was bad news for commuters.

“(The roads are) going to be packed,” Marty Newman, a psychotherapist who commutes to San Francisco from his home in Oakland, told KGO-TV in San Francisco.

Newman said he does not know how he will get to work Tuesday.

Other transit agencies in the San Francisco Bay area have made preparations for the bridge’s closure, but officials are still urging people to be flexible with their commuting hours and take extra time to get to their destination.

“If you’re commuting and normally it takes you about half hour, give yourself at least an hour,” said Sgt. Trent Cross, spokesman for the California Highway Patrol’s Golden Gate division.

Cross said the CHP plans to increase staffing around other bridges that are likely to see more traffic.

The bridge was shut down Thursday night, and other bridges and public transportation systems were able to accommodate extra riders Friday, the first time since a major earthquake in 1989 that the bridge was closed on a working day.

But since that was the beginning of a long holiday weekend, Tuesday’s morning rush hour could prove more difficult.

Public transit agencies said they plan to increase capacity to handle the expected increase in riders because of the bridge’s closure.

Bay Area Rapid Transit spokesman Jim Allison said the commuter rail line will run longer trains, but Allison warned that finding parking at stations may be difficult.

The transit line typically carries about 340,000 commuters a day. It set a record with a little more than 405,000 riders on Sept. 8, 2008, Allison said.

Although the rail line can carry more people, Allison said commuters have to be spread out over the day.

“Most people travel to work between 8 and 9 o’clock. If you can avoid that hour, that’s a good idea,” he said.

The Golden Gate Transportation District said the Golden Gate Ferry will add one vessel with a capacity of 715 passengers leaving Larkspur for San Francisco at 7:30 a.m.