“Left Coast Lifter” floating crane completes Bay Bridge span
Today the two parts of the NEW eastern span of the Bay Bridge were joined when a red, white, and blue floating crane named the “Left Coast Lifter” lowered, “very meticulously,” the 1,000-ton (count the zeros!) final deck section into place! Fortunately, SFGate.com, the online home of the San Francisco Chronicle, has an amazing photogallery of the task! Slide 23 has a government simulation of installing the last deck section, and slide 27 has a video of the actual installation of the deck section, taken from a helicopter, in case you ever wondered how such feats of construction are accomplished!
The new easter span has been under construction since 2002 and has an estimated price tage of $6.3 billion and will have the tallest Self-Anchored Suspension (SAS) tower in the world, once the bridge is completed in 2013. Today, Jean Quan, the embattled mayor of Oakland, spoke at a press conference on the Bay Bridge. She has been facing a lot of public criticism of her handling of the Occupy Oakland protest, after Oakland police destroyed the encampment on Tuesday in the morning (while she was out of town on official business to Washington, D.C.) and fought demonstrators on Tuesday night. Yesterday, Mayor Quan allowed Occupy Oakland to re-establish its tent city, and today, filmmaker Michael Moore JOINED Occupy Oakland and called for Mayor Quan’s resignation.
New catwalks (not for those with a fear of heights) are in place for the next phase of construction of the Bay Bridge, the placement of suspension cables.
I first blogged about the original Bay Bridge back in February of 2009, and the new Bay Bridge, in September of 2009.
-Bill at
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