SACRAMENTO – The Toll Bridge Program Oversight Committee (TBPOC) announced today that the previously scheduled Labor Day opening of the new East Span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has been postponed. TBPOC also released its investigative report into the 32 bolts that broke on the Bay Bridge in March and its review of other bolts on the bridge.

The contractor now forecasts that the steel saddle retrofit of the failed bolts on the east pier will be completed by December 10, 2013. TBPOC will select a bridge opening date based upon actual completion of the east pier retrofit work, weather windows, traffic impacts and other information as it becomes available. The bridge opening may or may not coincide with a Monday holiday weekend and may involve shorter advance notice to the public than prior closures.

A four-day full closure of the existing bridge is necessary to complete construction work at the Oakland touchdown and Yerba Buena Island tunnel in order to transition traffic from the old span to the new one.

The TBPOC also released its final investigative report today that lays out at length the chronology of events and assigns proper responsibility as warranted. The findings, and all other information contained in the report can be found at websites for the Bay Bridge, Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. In addition to the report, thousands of additional pages of documentation and records have also been posted on those websites.

There will be a public briefing at a special meeting of the Bay Area Toll Authority on July 10 at 10 a.m. at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission offices at 101 Eighth Street in Oakland, Calif. where a discussion will take place where questions from the public, elected officials and the media will be answered by members of the TBPOC and by members of the Seismic Safety Peer Review Panel.

The meeting will be audio-cast online at: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/meetings/schedule/

The Toll Bridge Program Oversight Committee was created by the State Legislature in 2005 to provide project oversight and project control for the Toll Bridge Seismic Retrofit Program in California. The TBPOC is comprised of the Director of the Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Executive Director of the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA), and the Executive Director of the California Transportation Commission (CTC). The Committee’s oversight and control activities include review and approval of contract bid documents, review and resolution of project issues, evaluation and approval of project change orders and claims, and the issuance of monthly and quarterly program progress reports.