In 2 hours the Bay Bridge closes tonight for the weekend.
 

Here's the reason why.
Click on the "How We'll Do It" link

2009 Bay Bridge Closure | Bay Bridge Info

I think it's so stupid that they have FastTrack but it doesn't link with our FastTrack in Southern California. I drove the Treg up in 2008 and got a ticket while crossing, 40 minutes of phone time later it was fixed. Can we say stupid?

Pretty cool how they are doing it. Hope it works. ;)

The project worked however.....

The Bay Bridge will not open this morning as planned because of unfinished repairs on a recently discovered bridge crack,

They say it will doom the region to a traffic nightmare for at least one more day, I guess we will see come the morning.

Bridgeless commuters scramble for transit options - Inside Bay Area

They did it...

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Working non-stop overnight, crews repaired a cracked eyebar on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge hours ahead of schedule Tuesday, allowing the crucial commute artery to re-open and help alleviate a morning traffic nightmare.

Impressive, even when they found a crack on the bridge...good thing they closed the bridge!! Did you drive over it yet?

Nope; I seldom do unless it for a night
on the town. I take Bart or the ferry
for day trips and some shopping but
that's it.

QuickSilver -

No pun to hijack your thread but my buddy produced a series as well, and it totally opened up my eyes on how much backend stuff goes on that we all take for granted....
They really pulled it off on Bay Bridge.

Here's a link for all you local Gothamers
Sandhogs - 800 feet below NYC streets - History.com

We may never know the real cause of this problem but it has been concluded that
high winds were also a factor in causing the “fatigue” that eventually sent a cable and
5,000-pound bracket crashing to the roadway surface.

Sources say there were four tie rods, two on each side, that held the
3-foot-wide steel crossbeam in place. Caltrans is replacing all four tie
rods, not just the two that fell off.
When a strong wind blows through the span, it causes structural components
that are exposed to oscillate. The entire bridge can be set vibrating, giving off a low-frequency hum.

Engineers said that while the original design compensated for those vibrations,
the Labor Day repair of the troubled eyebar did not.
The tie rods vibrated for seven weeks before a connection failed.
"What wasn't expected was the rod would shift in position relative to the other
metal components and the anchorages, during the vibration, it started to rub metal to metal.
That rubbing literally wore through the steel. Since the parts were under several
tons of tension, the failure was catastrophic.
"It looks like wind was a contributing factor to fatigue
on the tie rods, which caused vibration that made them collapse