San Francisco Bay

Location Description

Sub-locations

Oakland Bay Bridge

168 photos

For Rob's birthday, a group of us went to Encuentro, a...
This also meant that we got to see the Bay Bridge up...
Old Bay Bridge with Yerba Buena Island in the background.
John squinting into the sunshine as usual.
Rob on the ferry.
Rob and Monica talking on the ferry. Rob just bought a...
Entering Oakland Harbor. The decommissioned Alameda...
AT/AT crane from Empire Strikes Back. Apparently this is...
Alameda Naval Air Station.
Alameda Naval Air Station
Port of Oakland!
There are a few businesses on the old air station in...
Cruising through Oakland Harbor.
This dock looks like it is in need of some TLC.
Sailing! It was a very windy day, must have been fun to...
Cool looking crane in Oakland Harbor.
Old Navy crane that definitely doesn't work anymore.
A dry dock! Pretty sweet.
This is the best logo I have seen in a long while. I...
This ship is named Lurline. Like Lurline Lumpkin from...
That's a kind of clever logo. The T looks like a Ship...
The title of coolest ship name lasted only briefly to...
Looking at the Bay Bridge from Embarcadero near the...
Yerba Buena Island and one tower of the west span of the...
The Bay Bridge from the southeast, taken from the...
Option B.
Bridge-en glow!
At this point, the new bridge began to peek into view.
Unfortunately, the old span of the east bridge kind of...
Western span.
While this half is less pretty (I think, especially in...
Another sunseted cityscape.
The giant 1700T (on water, not land) crane built in...
The crane from further away. We joked that this was the...
The Oakland end of the Self Anchored Suspension span (SAS).
Catherine and Tour Guide Carol inspect the SAS of the...
Looking at the main tower from water level. Sort of...
The silver spools on the barge are single bundles of...
Looking up at the Bay Bridge tower and crane.
Looking up at the bottom of the SAS, with bikeway to the left.
Looking up through the space between the two bridge...
Catherine and John on the boat.
Looking up at the SAS. Note that this side of the...
Looking up at the SAS tower. Eventually, when the big...
The old, the new, and the construction.
We watched the tower crane (the base of which is visible...
Looking up at the bent cap at the start of the SAS.
New skyway and old Bay Bridge.
Maintenance access to the skyway and in the distance...
Piers for the Skyway (the part from the SAS to Oakland).
That is one large expansion joint. Visible within are...
Another view at the joint. Also, you can see the...
Looking down the skyway towards Oakland. The horizontal...
Access holes under the skyway.
Looking back towards YBI and the SAS.
50 mph speed limit.
Repaired span of the SF Bay Bridge. If you zoom in and...
I thought this view fit in with my "Pathways" series of...
The off-angle of the hydraulic piston makes this...
Turns out, the Oakland Bay Bridge has a troll! For a...
Another shot of the hydraulic piston on the south side...
The segment that fell from further away.
And now, from the other side.
Glancing back at the city from the boat. We were quite...
Catherine talking with Tour Guide Carol.
Headed back to the Oakland Touchdown (nothing to do with...
Remember the spool of wire we saw being lifted to the...
1700 ton crane custom built for lifting the Chinese...
Seeing a mirage on the nearly complete skyway, headed...
After the boat tour came a drive on the skyway to the...
Catherine walking up to the SAS.
Bundles of steel cable waiting in line to get strung.
Closer shot of the steel cable spools.
Spools of wire wait their turn. On the right, the blue...
On the steel deck of the SAS.
Ski-lift type mechanism for stringing steel cables. The...
Out on the deck of the SAS, looking at the tower.
A bundle of wires (127 per bundle) gets pulled up to the...
Each of the cable bundles that are already strung are...
The cable bundles are taped together to mark and...
Looking out towards the Golden Gate Bridge from the new...
John and Catherine are all smiles on the bridge!
Giving the wire bundles a sense of scale.
Catherine on the SAS.
Catherine and Carol on the SAS.
Approximately 78 bundles of 127 wires that will become...
John and Catherine.
That walkway looks more than a little teeter-tottery for...
John and tour-guide Carol walk towards the main tower.
View of a maintenance staircase between the eastbound...
One of the cross-beams between the two spans. We had...
Bundle of cable waiting to be installed. Each bundle is...
Again, reminds me of a space shuttle launch pad.
Catherine is all smiles in front of the new Bay Bridge tower.
All the necessary details. Each wire was tagged with...
The orange traveler is I believe what attaches the steel...
I feel like the tower might actually be a rocket ship...
Looking down 200+ feet to Yerba Buena Island. Don't drop...
We are now near Yerba Buena Island, where the SAS main...
For more info on all this, check out this site:...
New Bay Bridge tower from the other side.
Where the cables turn around. The massive steel U-shaped...
The channels actually force the cable bundles from their...
This is were the construction of this bridge gets even...
Remember: the SAS is a Self-Anchored Suspension bridge,...
Note that each cable bundle has a blue wire and a red...
The tower shadow on the water so very far below.
The intermittent white pieces sticking out are the...
CalTrans Catherine, at the cable turnaround. We're now a...
Looking towards the Golden Gate. Good thing our tour...
Steel tension rods 200+ feet long actively pulling the...
The deck in the SAS is steel, but the Skyway from...
Looking at the SAS wire bundles, towards YBI.
Here you have a better view of the rectilinear channels...
Unlike the Skyway, the approach from YBI appears to have...
The approach from YBI (actually, this is the westbound...
Back to the wire bundles. The bundles naturally want to...
We're still under the deck at the YBI end. This giant...
The YBI descent again. This is the same structure we...
Looking back at the old structure.
And up at it. Sure has a lot of rivets.
Another look at the old span and its eyebolts.
Unfortunately for us, right about this time was lunch...
Happy square bundles of wires. Not that you can see the...
We are now on the south side, looking back at the tower....
In the top right, the cable that was just placed can be...
Better view of the jacking equipment, and workers...
Then, the hydraulics are released. The CalTrans...
Looking at the bike path on the east-bound span.
And back at the deviator saddle. Before lunch, the guys...
View of the pedestrian-bike path on the south side of...
78 out of 137 cable bundles in place, headed up the...
Now this catwalk looked nice and sturdy. I challenged...
Eventually the main cables get attached to a number of...
The angled white structures off the side of the deck are...
Looking down on the top of the hanger anchor assembly. ...
Another look at the anchor. I wish I had something in...
The nearly straight cables at the center left run all...
Closer up.
Another picture of John and Catherine, with the light in...
The spare parts yard.
I hope not.
Supply yard. It's amazing how much more open this...
Scaffolding and elevator "shaft" on the south side of the tower.
The old bridge. Some base paint seems to be showing...
John's helmet casting a shadow.
Looking up the tower. Now I need to figure out how to...
Steel cable bundles waiting for installation.
Most of these buckets were marked with notes like "do not use".
Note the conical cable receptacles on top.
John glances back one more time. Probably the next time...
A lot of civil piping runs through the bridge. It seems...
I was amazed by how over-the-road the cables were...
A second cable-moving trolley.
Apparently bridge workers like trolls and Angry Birds.
Steel tie rods where the tensioned cables are anchored...
I love that even this "small" task has necessitated a...
One of the coolest parts. This is the anchor for the...
Each cable bundle has a giant end cast on to it - the...
The other end of the casing has a threaded hole in it,...
The hardest part with applying load to anything is how...
Tour-Guide Carol liked that the workers used the...
Some unfinished expansion joints.
Another deviator saddle, where the big cable comes down...
Looking at the expansion joint between the SAS and the...
Close-up of one tube (without its mate).
Looking down to the supports below.
Driving back in the Mini Cooper.