Year 4

March 8, 2003, 4:00 pm: Three deck pieces have been added this week and as the pieces are welded together, they no longer have the curved appearance as before. The tricky move involving the Vallejo deck is almost complete and you can see from the center photo that it is almost in place. The photo on the right shows how the crane has dropped the strand jacks to the barge below. The tug will now shuttle them over to Mare Island for cleaning before they are used to hoist the next piece. Deck lifts seem to be almost routine now.

Click on the photos to enlarge them.

From the Maritime Academy you can see the last Vallejo deck piece almost in place. It was another great day for bridge viewing and people are still coming from all over the Bay Area to watch the construction progress.

April 2, 2003, 4:57 pm: Three more decks are waiting to be raised on the Crockett side. The last three had to be slid into place through the tower legs. Next they will be lifted into place using strand jacks. In the picture on the right you can see one deck piece inside the tower legs and the others below it. These were the last deck pieces from Japan.

May 9, 2003, 3:53: These pictures below are a series of shots of an I-beam being raised. Alot of work is being done on the bridge approach to get it connected to the bridge deck.


		Can you find the worker? If you click in the picture to the left, you can find an iron worker working on the connector ramp waiting to receive the I-Beam from the crane. He is working right over the anchorage.

All the pieces of the bridge deck are now attached to suspender cables. The last pieces on the Crockett side still need a little tweaking to get them into place. That's why you still see the strand jacks there. The bridge deck has a curve to it which is normal. It is higher than we expected and is slightly higher than the decks of the other bridges. You can see people working on the deck as you drive by. Now workers are performing the task of wrapping the main cable. First they put a protective coating on the cable bundles and then they wrap it with a thinner wire. They started this in the middle and working back toward the two towers. Follow this link to ironworker Dick McCabe, Jr.'s sight to see some great up-close and personal photos from someone who is actually doing this work. http://www.ironmc.com/main.htm
What's next? After some design changes, the rails are beginning to be manufactured and they will be installed. The deck pieces are being welded together and the bridge deck is being prepared for a special asphalt coating. The bridge cables will be painted red and the railings will be green. These colors were chosen by a citizen's advisory committee in Crockett after they saw a series of drawings in various colors.
DECK TOUR--June 2, 2003

Not so long ago, on a beautiful spring day, we attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the new bridge. Today, we were invited to actually walk on the deck--what a tremendous feeling we had! We walked onto the deck from the Vallejo side. Again, it was another beautiful spring day. On this tour we took along a Hogan High School film crew. They filmed us on tour and later produced a short piece for the school's "Morning Show." In this picture you can see one of the workers on a bike. Since their work takes them back and forth across the span, the workers have bicycles so they don't have to walk so far.

Before we began our tour, Bart gave us a little update about the progress of the bridge. Since the deck is now all raised into place, ironworkers are busy welding each piece together. The deck surface itself is being cleaned up and prepared for the layer of asphalt which will be the road surface. Permanent electrical wiring is being installed on the deck for lighting and other power needs. Inside the towers, stairs are being installed for maintenance crews. The main cables are being cleaned and prepped for painting. The next main construction project will be the final connection of the bridge deck with the Crockett interchange. There are two expansion joints at both ends of the bridge that will be completed as well. Finally, the guardrails are being manufactured and painted and will soon be arriving for installation.

The following are pictures taken from our tour. Click on them to see them bigger.


Before we went onto the deck, we went under it to see how the deck pieces have been welded together.	Under the bridge you can see that there is still work to be done. A concrete bumper has been constructed to protect the tower from a collision with a ship.	We also got a good look at the main cables as they are splayed before entering the anchorage. Last time we were here, there were only a few cables.

This is what the welded sections look like from the top.	We took a look at one of the two expansion joints. Unlike other bridges that have spaces between each deck piece, the new bridge has only two high-tech expansion joints.	Bart showed us part of the mechanism of the expansion joint under the bridge deck.

We were surprised to see that the cables are attached to the bridge deck with what looked like simple nuts, bolts and cotter pins we've seen before but MUCH BIGGER!		The deck still has a curved appearance and when you are walking on it, it looks like an uphill trek to the center..

Let's hope that they raise the speed limit on the bridge, or else the CHP will be very busy writing tickets for speeders!	Graffiti on the bridge already? No! These are marks made by the Japanese ironworkers who constructed the deck sections in Japan. Notice that they have been doused with good old American coffee by our ironworkers!	Filming us, filming them? Caltrans is documenting the building of the bridge and all the people involved in its construction--including us!

We posed with Bart, our tour guide. Notice the cool shades we had to wear to protect us from the glare on the deck. Safety first! We had to be always aware of what was around us, above us, and at our feet.	Once we were on the deck, we just enjoyed looking at the new views we had of our North Bay region. As pedestrians, everyone walking across the bridge will be able to enjoy this view.	Besides car and foot traffic, the new bridge will continue to allow ships like this to pass under it on their way to inland ports at Benicia, Martinez, Sacramento, and Stockton. Oil, automobiles and other goods enter the San Francisco Bay and travel through the Carquinez Straits.

Painting the Cables, July 3, 2003

It's hard to tell from these shots but the farthest main cable has already been painted from the south tower to about the center of the bridge. Some of the suspender cables have been painted too. Some people say the color is like the Golden Gate Bridge, but actually it is darker--a richer reddish orange.

We are all excited about the prospect of the bridge opening in late October, early November. We've been appearing at local elementary schools, teaching and sharing what we know about suspension bridges and how they are built. Students are now looking forward to the grand opening with fireworks and other activities. We all want to ride our bicycles across the new deck too!