>> ok. we will get started. i'm the senior communications manager for the california department of trorbgs spokesperson for the san francisco oakland bay bridge. we have invited the media to give you an update on construction progress for our new bridge. a number of things are happening right now and will continue to happen the next two years as we get ready to open up the new bridge to public service. first, we have a transport ship that recently arrived during our final segment that will be put in place the next couple of months to complete the main deck for the suspension bridge. we also, the past few weeks, have constructed a cat walk system that is very visible to the public that will act as a platform for our construction team to erect, to basically place the main cable of what will be the world's largest

self-anchored suspension bridge out in three-dimensional space. that is another very visual element that continues. as we get closer to the end of the year, we will begin erecting equipment that will be placed out there. it will basically look like a giant conveying machine that will pull the cable strands across over what you see that is the cat walk system. that work will begin, the actual pulling, probably january of 2012. but the equipment is being installed now. you will get a chance to look at that in the field today. our contractors have been working long hours to ensure that the transition structure is completed on time. we have the westbound portion of that structure that would take you into san francisco. it is nearing completion and should be done by the end of

this year. then we will begin construction on the eastbound portion. it has started but you will see concrete being poured soon. then coming in the spring of 2012 we will complete an operation that started earlier this year. we moved eastbound traffic to the south on the oakland side of the bay bridge to accommodate for construction work that will be happening the next couple of years. that will allow us to open the bridge all at once approximately six months ahead of the original schedule. in the spring we will be basically closing the westbound bridge heading into san francisco for a period of days. we will come back with more information so you will know what will happen. this is similar to other closures. while closed we will shift the approach to the bridge after you come out fof the toll plaza traffic will be shifted to the

south that. will allow us to surgically remove a portion of the bridge that is currently in the way of the new bridge's alignment. while traffic is running on the new portion we will remove the old portion and allow us to put the construction crew there and basically complete the new bridge so we can open the entire thing at one time. this is a lot of information and you can go to the bay bridge info.org. before i break it down i want to say tonight is special. we are going to illuminate the construction lighting on the cat walk for the self-anchored suspension bridge for the first time. and most people when i say big deal it is construction lighting and maybe our architects would say that, but what happens is it is little bit of revealing. this is out there because they have to work at night and they need the pathways illuminated

but ultimately it means you are getting an early look at what the bridge will look like at night for the first time at 7:45 tonight. we wanted you to be aware of that. those are the main items we have asked you to see. this is one of the few times we have been able to work out with the contractor that we could allow you to come out and be physically on the bridge and go up inside the tower. we hope you will work with us, follow our safety standards. there will be a number of cal tran personnel to ask questions regarding safety or access. if you have any questions see me or tony. at this point in time we will -- mike, do you have a quick one? >> why today? just because the lights are going on? >> let's take the q&a. i will run through the presentation because it will help the folks that it is their

first time doing it. >> paul, are you ready? this presentation is available on line at our media bar. this is just to give you an understanding of the different elements for the bay bridge. the first piece is the arrival of the final steel deck segment on the transport ship that came in yesterday, on sunday. here is some of the footage of the pieces arriving in the bay underneath our western span. there is over 5,000 tons of steel on the transport ship and this is the last ship of its type coming in for the bridge. still a couple of hardware items we are awaiting but the bulk of the steel is now here. and what are we actually seeing today? basically, if you look at the very end of the self-anchored suspension bridge there is a gap between that and the sky walk.

over the next couple of months the pieces that have arrived will be filling that gap. here you can see, using google, we have outlined the gaps that exist. these are the pieces that recently arrived and need to be placed. the next couple of months you will see us in this order place 13 west, 13 east, 14 east, 14 west, and connect them into the bridge. over 350,000 bolts are used to connect this. there are 28 sections overall. these are the final four pieces that will complete that deck. they are some of the most complex ones we have had to build for the bridge because inside of them is the anchorage of the structure. the techniques topic are the cat -- the tphebnext topic is the c walks. we have seen this happened.

you can see slightly different the process that they used to put them in place. this is vintage footage but the same type of structure. steel cable, steel or chicken wire mesh that the workers work on. we have wooden platforms on top of the mesh. you see this guy struggling a little bit to get in place. these guys had to do some different things than we had to do. but again you can see there the cat walk creates the geometry of the bridge. in the 1930's when those came out that is when bay area residents saw what the west bands looked like. that is what you are seeing right now. in the past few weeks away put our cat walk in place. you see a couple of film images of what you will see on site as they connect to the top of the tower. this is our back expand, the short expand that goes toward

the island. also online we have a couple of quick methods of i think this is some of the electrical work that was done to put the lighting system in place as we get ready to place the main cable. here is a shot for scale that you can see. you see one person working there. the lights are the exact same fixtures that were used on the memorial bridge in 2002. american bridge procured them and is using them here. when we put those in place that was a preview of what that would look like at tphaoeufplt tonight, the same thing. that is the cat walk segment. the final deck segment installation. that is over the next couple of months. these shots show a little bit of a very large crane --

barge-mounted crane that does the heavy lifting to put the segments in place. the pieces weigh over 1,000 tons and they are put down in place where they need to be and are pwoeplted together that. is a few shots of what the operation will look like the next couple of months. as we finish the year, the hardware will go in place for cable placement and as next year begins we will go into placing the main cable but what is the main cable and why is it different on this bridge? this bridge will be the world's largest self-anchored suspension bridge with one main tower and one cable. if you follow the arrows, you can see it starts on the east side, comes across traffic over the top of the tower, wraps around the back of the bridge, comes back across traffic up to the top of the tower and anchors back on the other side.

if you think of a traditional suspension bridge as a hammock connected on two sides, this is more like a sling, connected on one side and loops around the other. so, if that makes sense, then we can show you sort of what the next process is. in order to put this cable in place we have connections that will be happening primarily on t the eastern side of the self-anchored suspension bridge and the wraparound will be happening on the western side of the bridge. if we look at the eastern side first, you can see how the main cable comes down into the road that you drive on and like any traditional suspension bridge the cable fans out. this cable is made up of smaller wires. you look at the fact sheet, you will see there are 137 strands, of 127 wires each. the wires are about five millimeters in diameter. each could basically lift a

military grade hummer and there are 17,399 of those wires in the main cables of the bridge. so, as it comes down to the deck it comes through the stroud and fans out and ties back within that deck section. that is how it connects on the eastern side of the bridge. if we look back at the main span, the cable wraps around the western side at the island. unlike traditional suspension bridges where two cables move up and down, our one cable is moving on three plane, coming kraog across track and back. so we have changed the angle and we bring it around. another saddle about midpoint where during construction we can work with the tensioning on the

cable so we get it where it needs to be for placement. then on the other side you have the same three-dimensional saddle that takes the deviation as it comes across. so, i hope that makes sense. it is moving in three planes. it is not coming straight down. it is coming at an angle and across. that is on the western side. and there are steel cables inside that beam that are holding down that end of the bridge inside some of the strongest foundations in the world. the cable is made up of strands of wire, 127 of those wires are in one strand. there you can see the hexagonal pattern of one strand. we have 137 of those strands that make up that main cable. when they are in place and we have the rest of the hardware, the cable is compacted into a

insul cylinder form. that will be happening in 2012. then where we are going today? there. that is the top of the world's largest self-anchored suspension bridge. you can see it iis clearly part of oakland and downtown san francisco. that will be empty today and it weighs over 800 tons. over at the island we have another project to connect this back into the tunnel. here you can see the bridge has been designed, the eastern span, with side-by-side travel. as we come on to the island we have to reorient that traffic into a double deck configuration so it can go into the tunnel and on to the west.

so we have the traffic detour and right now we are building the westbound structure that will take the traffic off the suspension bridge and connect it to the top of the tunnel. after that is done we will have the eastbound traffic headed from san francisco to oakland slide underneath that structure and connect into the tunnel on different foundations for seismic regions. so you see here outriggers. they will support the westbound structure. there is a different foundation for the eastbound structure so the structures can move in a large scale earthquake. and that is what this project is all about. these are a couple of shots that will be clear when you get there. they were taken from a airplane,

a helicopter. there is the westbound structure that is being cast right now. you can see the columns down there below for the eastbound structure that we are getting ready to work on. and a shot from the platform of what it looks like toward the self-anchored suspension bridge. so, that is what is happening on the island. here, in oakland, there is a lot of work happening too on the open touchdown portion. i talked about that detour earlier. i want to try to break down for you what is happening here. with this image, you can see that we've got brand-new, very bright white colored structure that is a new bridge with westbound traffic on the outside, more to the north eastbound traffic sort of in the middle and the existing bridge is the one on the southern part. and here you can clearly see that there is a conflict with the eastbound bridge.

why that is why we have only built it that far. that triangle has to be removed before we can build the bridge. the strategy is earlier this year we put in an eastbound detour. we took people heading into oakland farther to the south to clear space so that we could do this westbound detour early next year. so, as you come out of the toll plaza next year after we do the closure we will be routing traffic slightly more south to open this area up. that red triangle right there is what has to be surgically removed. it will be cut off so that we open up that area in the middle so we can put a construction crew between the bridges and build it out at the same time that we are building the rest of the bridge. that is what is allowing us to open this bridge all at one time. that is what is happening on the oakland side. bridge right now.

here is a quick animation and this was the opening of eastbound and west. that is where we will be next year. then take that section out, build the new bridge and open up to traffic. if you can hold there, paul -- can you hold? it also gives you an idea of what the orientation of the bridge will be when we are ready to open it. it will that sort of tight pinch and there will be a bridge closure associated with an opening of the structure where a lot will have to be done to get it open to traffic. then tonight is going to be first time that we see the construction lighting on the self-anchored suspension bridge. we have loaded some images of what the construction looked like on our sister bridge.

this is construction footage from 2002. that is exactly what those lights looked like back then. here is the bay underneath, the old bridge was open. some still shots. so you can see if you hold there, paul, that could be treasure island. it is able to see what this is going to look like. that is what we are pointing out the first time you will see that look for the new bridge. that is the finished architectural lighting plan. you see the string of pearl lighting on the main cable and lighting standards all the way down the deck. so you are getting a quick and early look at what the final project will be in two years. that is the presentation. if we can bring the lights back

up. we are doing pretty good on time. we want to go into q&a right now. >> what size earthquake is the bridge designed to withstand? second, how much can a bridge veer and move if there is an earthquake? >> basically the bridge is designed to handle the largest potential ground motion that would happen within a 1,500-year return period. i know you are looking for a richter scale but that is not how it is done. this straddles two of the largest faults in the world so we had to identify what the potential motions would be in an earthquake to determine what we would build. ultimately, cal tran came one a new classification to build this bridge and the martinez bridge. the level of earthquake this bridge is designed to handle would potentially disable both

san francisco and national airport and oakland airport and we would be receiving material to the air force base and charting them down to the martinez bridge has been built for this criteria. so, as tightly as i can get that >> it is a life line. >> that is exactly what this bridge is designed for. >> most bridges are designed not to fall down. this bridge is designed not only to not fall down, but be immediately useable by emergency service vehicles and returning to regular use. >> how many lights are there going to be? >> i don't know for sure. there are 114 different strands , spender cables. so it will be somewhere in that

magnitude as a string of pearls, but i don't have that number. >> what about construction lighting? >> i don't have that number on construction lighting, but in that ballpark. [inaudible question] >> well, it has to do with temperature. as we pull these steel sections across. with the way that the sun shines down on the strand, part of it is in the sun and part in the shadow. it actually lengthens the strand. you can't take a good measurement of how long the strand is. we have the workers to that at night. the final tensioning and surveying happens when there is a uniform temperature around the steel. it has to happen. [inaudible question] >> basically you have to measure the bridge at night because the sun strikes the cable and heats up only part of

it, and you dope get an accurate reading. >> you mentioned the cable is holding the sections together somehow? >> the cable is anchored down into the eastern side. it comes up and laps around the western side, and the entire cable system, the suspenders that come off of it, they are in tension. there are 28 different deck segments. they are in what is called compression. those two forces are balancing each other out on this bridge, and the weight is transmitting down the towers. >> holding itself up. >> a traditional suspension bridge, the cable anchors into the ground. this connects into the deck and holds itself up. >> so that time you would

describe as a normal person? >> that is a basic description. self-anchored, what does that mean? >> it is a new type of design. there are 30-40 of them around the world. this is going to be the largest one. basically you use a self-anchored pension when i don't have an easy opportunity to anchor things into the ground. the western bay suspension bridge is actually two suspension bridges anchored together. it has more concrete in it than the empire state building in new york. >> wasn't this done for

aesthetic purposes because they wanted to have something making a bold statement? >> one of the early proposals was building a sky way all the way out. aesthetics is extremely important on the bridge. the first and foremost thing that we did -- the reason for this bridge and project is to deliver a life line project to help this region and state when that earthquake comes at some point in the future. >> when the cable run starts, how long will it take to make the cable and how long will the cable run actually run? >> it will continue until all of the strands are placed. what is also different about the construction process is on a typical suspension bridge, you work on half, and then you shift so that there is only one

cable. the entire catwalk system is always in play. there is an opportunity to get out there and see this. but it will continue around the clock to some extent, and that is primarily because the day you pull the strands, and then the night work happens where you are tensioning the strabbeds where they need to be. >> are there anymore safety measures being put in place for drivers on the new span to not get distracted by the new lighting? >> well, this is the first one. basically we are coming out and saying that this work is happening. we have actually been doing that all the way along. as we started to lift power segment, when we felt like we might be affecting the visuals on the bridge, we put information out there because the bridge is so large, there is no effective way to do that.

so letting people know is a big part of our safety. this is a first attempt at that. >> when do the construction workers actually begin work on the cable? >> it has already started really because they are placing the catwalk system and the hardware. the actual work is january of 2012. >> so we won't see work there for a while? >> it is starting now. what they have to do is put that hardware up there. they are going to build a ski lift on top of the caught walk. they will have big forkts that -- forks that will hold the strands all the way across. that is why we don't begin strand work until next year. the strands came from china. >> you are going to have a walkway so people can walk-on

to treasure island. is that part of the plans? >> off the final bridge? >> yes. >> there is a pedestrian path. >> any possibility of extending that to san francisco? >> the metropolitan transportation committee is doing a study on that very possibility right now. >> so there is a possibility? >> there is a possibility. [inaudible question] >> no, there is not going to be public access to the top of the tower. this is a very unique opportunity we are doing today. >> on the next part, the owning of the web detour, how will that happen? will there be some period of hours or a day where you cannot go on the bridge? >> well, that actually is going to be big news. we are telling you right now we are going to be closing the web portion of the bridge early next year.

>> for how long? >> we are still working on that. we are going to have to come back to you with a specific presentation on exactly what is happening there. it is probably going to be a couple of days. we are going to be restriping that whole approach coming out of the toll plaza there. we will come back witt more information, but probably a couple of -- with more information, but probably a couple of days with the web lanes closed. it is the way we usually with -- usually work with the bay bridge. >> any chance on finding a holiday? >> fingers are crossed. the things that have to happen is we have to be ready from a construction standpoint to do the work, and we also have the weather to work. >> but it might be possibly up to a couple of days for the web -- for the westbound