SF-Oakland Bridge Opens.

So the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland bridge opened today. It pretty much illustrates everything right and wrong with how things are now done. It took a total time of just a month shy of 24 years to design and build this, versus the less than six years for the original bridge, both east and west spans, in the 1930s. The entire original was built for a total cost of $77 million (~$1.3 billion 2013 dollars) , versus $6.4 billion for just the new east span. The new east span has been designed and built to withstand a 1,500-year earthquake, making it safe for the magnitude of the 1989 Loma Prieta quake that resulted in a section of the old bridge collapsing. An inordinate amount of money was spent to add a bicycle/pedestrian path (east span only) that in no way would be justified by a cost versus benefit analysis based on the actual use that will get. It looks damn good though versus the old span.

[MJK2111]

And there is already controversy brewing...they've found broken bolts and question the structural integrity of the span.