The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge – Eastern Span

Abstract

With daily traffic of 260,000 vehicles, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is a major connection in the San Francisco Bay Area. The new bridge is a designated lifeline structure (to remain open for emergency traffic after a major seismic event) with a design life of 150 years. The new bridge is 3.6 km long and consists of four distinct structures: a low-rise post-tensioned concrete box girder near the Oakland shore; a 2.4 km long segmental concrete box girder (Skyway); a first-of-its-kind self-anchored suspension (SAS) bridge with a 385 m main-span over the navigational channel; and a post-tensioned concrete box girder that connects to the east portal of the Yerba Buena Island tunnel. Opened in 2013, the signature span of the bridge is the self-anchored suspension (SAS) bridge with a length of 624 m and a total deck width of 79 m accommodating 10 lanes of traffic in addition to a bike/pedestrian path. The $6.4 billion USD mega project was procured under multiple contracts and was delivered using the traditional design-bid-build method. This paper describes the key design innovations and construction methods which address the unique challenges on this project.