Driving to San Francisco around the time construction had started on the new Bay Bridge, I looked over and knew, just knew, that I had to find a way onto the construction site. My series, “California Sketches,” with the Sacramento Bee was my ticket by 2011. I called CalTrans and joined a tour one very beautiful day in July with a few architects and engineers.
How can words describe something so stunning? Thirteen years later, my essay, published on July 31, 2011, is a start.
Poised at the edge of the new Bay Bridge, 150 feet above water, I stand suspended on a temporary platform -- awestruck. Looking west, across a 370-foot gap, another section emerges from Yerba Buena Island. Like the Transcontinental Railroad that linked America, the new Bay Bridge construction materializes from opposite shores. The two sides will expand until they’re flawlessly joined.
We have come to visit. No, wait; visit is too small a word. We have come to experience this construction project by boat and from the new Skyway deck by car. A Lilliputian is what I feel like as I drive up the new bridge, as if on a magic satin ribbon. Stopping just short of the gap, a vista stretches forever. Blessed with a clear, warm day, we see the Golden Gate, tiny ships, and tiny humans pursuing complex and miraculous tasks of building this seismically ingenious 21st century bridge. This view belonged to the denizens of the sky, and now it will belong to all who pass over this structure, whether it’s by bike or car, or on foot.
Sketch for essay in the Bee from the CalTrans boat
Understanding the distinct segments of this project is critical to comprehending this monumental blending of form, function and innovations in materials and technology. First, from Oakland is the transition from Interstate 80 to the new Skyway deck. Second, the Skyway: 452 massive precast concrete spans ascending elegantly, six lanes side-by-side. From the water, the contrast of new bridge and old is extraordinary. The old Bay Bridge resembles a vulnerable, awkward, angular erector set, grey, dull and claustrophobic from the inside. The new is sleek, white, massive and curvaceously graceful. Even the birds have been thoughtfully provided for under the span, with cormorant condos.
Sketch for Bee looking west from the eastern side of the span
The gap before me awaits the final installation of the most complex element of the bridge to design and build -- the self-anchored suspension superstructure. A single tower penetrates 196 feet into the bedrock far below the surface of the Bay, and rises through the deck soaring 525 feet above water. The last segments will contain the anchorage for the suspension system, a massive mile-long cable that rises from the east to the top of the tower, down to a curved structure at the west end where it loops around and soars back to the tower top, and then returns east where it is buried into steel plates.
At night, the bridge will be illuminated, glowing white, an inspiration the architect* drew from the Victorian roofs of San Francisco and the cranes at the Port of Oakland. From the boat, the temporary steel support systems are dramatic, a cacophony of rust-colored steel contrasting with the pristine planes of the supports and decking far above. The final segment is the transition from the new side-by-side decks to the existing upper and lower roadways of the Yerba Buena Tunnel.
From the heights of the Skyway, we descended to Oakland, on a vast and empty, six-lane road. On the old Bay Bridge to our right, tiny toy vehicles rushed east and west.
Sketches and notes from the boat.
Now, thirteen years later, the sketches I did for the Bee no longer convey the power of the project for me.
Looking west to San Francisco
Structural supports from below
The first part of the visit was by boat, and as we returned to the CalTrans office, our guide asked if we wanted to drive up onto the span.
Wait, what?
View from my car.
The thrill of driving my car where few got to go. Walking out to the edge of the span, stepping out and looking down to the Bay far below.
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Looking across the the western span, I had no idea that in just a few days, I’d be traveling up to the very top of that Tower.
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Stevie, You created an inspiring and stunning word pictuvre of the "new" Bay Bridge. Your photographs are brilliant and I hope they are preserved in a major museum or archives. With admiration, Gary
Stevie, You created an inspiring and stunning word pictuvre of the "new" Bay Bridge. Your photographs are brilliant and I hope they are preserved in a major museum or archives. With admiration, Gary