The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
There is a bridge in California that has just recently become the world’s most expensive bridge. The bridge is the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The bridge is a toll bridge and has five lanes in total and connects San Francisco to Oakland through Yerba Buena Island. The bridge was functional since1936, which is approximately half a year before the Golden Gate Bridge opened.
In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake seriously compromised the safety of one section of the bridge. Due to different strategies that had continuously been discussed about whether to repair that section of the bridge, the construction slowly began. A decision was made to completely replace the entire section of bridge that had been damaged and that the funding would come from the people who travelled across it. The toll on the bridge has now been raised from three dollars to four dollars. With 280,000 vehicles crossing the bridge every day, this is a major source of funding.
In January 2002, the construction began on the section of the bridge. The construction should be completed by 2012. The cost of replacing this section of bridge is approximately $6.3 billion.
