InBerkeley

As anyone who drives up and down Grizzly Peak regularly in a Prius knows, Berkeley’s hills are a boon for hybrid cars since energy from braking helps to recharge a car’s battery.

Berkeley already has one of the highest number of hybrid cars per person in the nation, and electric cars are next.

PG&E chairman Peter Darbee told the New York Times that plug-in electric cars are  likely to reach Berkeley and San Francisco in significant numbers in the next few years, and plans are under way to reinforce the distribution network to accommodate them.

[Photo: Tracey Taylor]

Environment, Green living, Transport, Transportation Electric cars

Just before 6pm fire crews were responding to a car on fire on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge.

[Source and pic: ABCNewsBay Area]

News, Transportation Bay Bridge

TechCrunch blog compares how the map products of the three major search engines are dealing with the closure of the Bay Bridge:

The short answer – Google wins. Yahoo a close second, and Microsoft Bing fails in this particular test.

Read the details at TechCrunch.

Transportation

AC Transit is proposing some dramatic changes to bus service in Berkeley and other parts of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. In many cases, frequencies are being reduced from every 30 minutes to every 40 or even 60 minutes, while several other lines, such as the 67 from downtown Berkeley to Tilden Park, may be eliminated altogether, with coverage shifted to the 65 line.

These proposed changes are due to a $57 million gap in AC Transit’s budget.  Before these changes are implemented, AC Transit has scheduled a series of community workshops this month where they will explain these changes and where citizens can voice their opinions, and has also set up several options for commenting on these proposed changes.

Government, Transportation

Despite some dire warnings of potential bridge collapse, the Bay Bridge seismic retrofit is proceeding smoothly [see UPDATE below].  Yesterday, one section of the existing span was cut out and moved laterally out of the way, and today a new 660-meter, 36,000-ton steel section was put in its place. Work continues to attach the new and old roadways by the Tuesday morning deadline.

The Dutch firm Mammoet is the subcontractor actually responsible for moving the old structure out and the new structure in place.  Once this detour is operational, it will create the room needed for the new Bay Bridge to enter the tunnel in its current alignment.

The primary contractor on this job is CC Myers, the same construction company that did the amazing job of replacing the I-580 overpass at the MacArthur Maze after a tanker truck explosion and fire caused the old overpass to collapse. CC Myers was also responsible for replacing another 348-foot section of Bay Bridge span nearer to the Yerba Buena tunnel one year ago.

24-hour live video of the construction work can be seen here (web) and here (wmv). You can also follow the progress on Twitter.

UPDATE: KGO-TV news is reporting that Caltrans crews have found a significant crack in an existing Bay Bridge support beam, a steel link, and repairs may keep the bridge closed beyond Tuesday. From the looks of it, I’d say well beyond Tuesday unless a quick fix can be applied.

The cause of the break in this supporting link structure is not known at this time, but would seem to be due to additional stress caused by the removal of the old section of the span. There had been reports of quite a bit of loud moaning and groaning by the structure when the old span was removed yesterday.

Further Update: Apparently, this crack or break in what is called an I-bar on the bridge structure just east of the current construction work has been there for some time, well before this weekend, and is so significant that had it been discovered earlier it would have closed the entire bridge on its own. (I knew there was a reason I always drove fast over that bridge when possible.) CalTrans is mobilizing contractors and materials to repair the crack, but it is far from certain, perhaps unlikely, that the bridge will reopen on Tuesday as scheduled.

Sunday Morning Update: Someone at the BayBridgeInfo organization posted this on Twitter: “Cracked bar has not posed a threat to drivers, other beams supported bridge section.” Obviously, the bridge didn’t collapse, and so one would assume the load normally carried by this cracked I-bar was distributed to other components of the bridge structure. That’s the way these things are supposed to be designed. No single point of failure. But if this failure is now being judged significant enough to have closed the entire bridge had it been detected earlier, I can’t say this statement is very reassuring.

Steel for the fix is coming from Stinger Welding in Arizona. These are the same guys who very quickly fabricated the steel girders needed for the replacement overpass on I-580 at the MacArthur Maze, another CC Myers project, so if anyone can get this job done in time, it’s them. All I can say is it’s a good thing they’re not closed for the holiday weekend.

Sunday Afternoon Update: Once again, Stinger Welding has come through with a minor miracle. They’ve fabricated the new part necessary for the repair and shipped from their facility in Arizona it in under 24 hours.  The new part arrived at Oakland airport at 1 p.m. this afternoon, and was on-site at 2 p.m.  Caltrans says it is physically possible to get the repair done and open the bridge Tuesday morning, but won’t commit to that, yet.  Stress testing still needs to be performed on the part, which then must be installed. Still things that could go wrong. Expect to hear more on the bridge opening tomorrow.

Meanwhile, work on the new detour section continues.  All joint work connecting the new section to the original bridge and detour is finished. Striping of the new section is underway, barrier rails are being installed and utility/electrical work is underway.

Monday Morning Update: Inspections and other pre-installation work has been completed on the “saddle” being used to repair the cracked link. Now workers have started putting it into place, but this is a complex, time-consuming process, and we won’t have a definitive word on whether or not the Bay Bridge will open at 5 a.m. tomorrow until 5 p.m. today, when Caltrans has scheduled another press briefing.  The other work on the detour is on schedule, and doesn’t seem to be a factor on the opening time. Caltrans is recommending that people have a plan B for their commute tomorrow.

Monday Afternoon Update: CC Myers may have won the battle of getting the detour on the Bay Bridge completed on time, but they lost the war to reopen the bridge by 5 a.m. Tuesday morning due to the unexpected discovery of a failing I-bar on another part of the bridge.

The Bay Bridge will be closed one additional day.  Caltrans has just announced the expected reopening of the Bay Bridge Wednesday morning at 5 a.m., 24 hours later than originally planned.

General, Transportation

[Photo: baybridgeinfo.org]

Transport, Transportation Bay Bridge, Transportation

What will the good folks of San Francisco do, cut off from the bright lights of the East Bay for four days? Don’t worry, there are plenty of ways people can get to Berkeley, even without the Bay Bridge.

The excellent Transbay Blog (best place for following transportation issues in the Bay Area) has a good round-up of how to get around. You’ll certainly find it more helpful than either the main Caltrans site, where Bay Bridge information is very well hidden, or the dedicated Bay Bridge site, where the priority seems to be .mov files showing construction.

BART will run 24 hours a day during the closure, although the late night schedule is very sparse. For some reason, BART will not run after midnight on Monday, even though the bridge is not scheduled to reopen until 5am. The other non-roundabout way to cross the Bay is the Oakland/Alameda ferry service, which is putting on extra services during the closure.

Transportation