A series of studies could determine how many years the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge has left until its decks would be replaced.
State transportation agencies are set to kick off a $300,000 study next week to analyze the condition of the bridge decks. The study will be one part of a larger assessment headed by the Bay Area Toll Authority and Caltrans of several of the Bay Area’s state-owned bridges. The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge will be first in line following recent incidents of concrete falling from the upper deck.
“Beyond 10 years, we have identified that there likely will be a need to replace the decks on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge,” said John Goodwin, spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “This analysis … will, one, confirm that, yes, this is work that will need to be done. Right now it’s just an expectation based on the age of the structure.”
Part of the reason the 5.5-mile bridge is being prioritized is because of several incidents of concrete falling from the upper deck onto the lower deck in the past few months. The first incident on Feb. 7 damaged one car and closed the bridge for several hours.
The cause was determined to be a failed expansion joint, which prompted a $9 million project by Caltrans to replace 31 expansion joints on the upper deck with more on the lower deck planned for later this year.
Construction work has since caused more concrete to fall. Degrading asphalt has also resulted in a damaged car and lane closures in recent weeks.
Goodwin said the study would have occurred regardless of those incidents, given the bridge’s age.
“The fact remains that the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is 63 years old,” Goodwin said. “The fact remains that it has thinner decks than the Bay Bridge, for instance.”
The focus on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge stems in part from pressure by Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-Greenbrae, and Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg. McGuire this week called for a more expeditious analysis of a possible bridge replacement. In addition to the ongoing studies, McGuire is calling on Caltrans to secure funding in the coming months to begin an initial environmental and engineering study.
“Time is of the essence and this route is too important not to fast-track,” McGuire said.
Funding for that study could come from the 2019-20 state budget or the California Transportation Commission, McGuire said.
As part of the $300,000 deck study over the next month, Colorado-based Bridge Diagnostics and Massachusetts-based Infrasense will use various technological surveying tools such as radar to penetrate deep into the bridge decks without damaging them. They will search for signs of degradation, cracking and more.
The overall Richmond-San Rafael Bridge assessment is expected to cost about $800,000, which includes the deck condition study, and will be funded by toll revenue, Goodwin said. The completion date is set for March 2020.
MTC and Caltrans will conduct similar studies on other bridges including the Bay Bridge West Span (built in 1936), eastbound Carquinez (1958), southbound Benicia-Martinez (1962), San Mateo-Hayward (1967), Antioch (1978) and Dumbarton (1984).
All told, these bridge studies are estimated to cost $5 million to $6 million, Goodwin said.
Levine said he was prepared to push for funding in the 2019-2020 state budget, but was pleased when MTC decided to use toll dollars to pay for it instead.
“They want to know is it just a repavement issue or is there something more significant going on to the bridge,” Levine said Thursday. “I’m grateful that they’re taking this serious and not just doing a surface level analysis.”
An informal estimate of the bridge’s lifespan gives it another 20 years of operation, Levine said, though the studies could decrease that time frame.
“That’s not a hard date, but this asset management plan and these studies will help inform whether that expectation is reasonable,” Levine said. “I’m working with MTC to figure out what the next steps will be to imagine what our alternatives are and potentially what the next span of the bridge would entail.”
While the bridge has about $80 million in planned maintenance over the next decade, there isn’t funding planned beyond then, especially for a full deck replacement, Goodwin said. The cost of replacing the decks could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“So those are hundreds of millions of dollars for which no funding source has yet been identified,” Goodwin said.
In the short term, transportation agencies are conducting other studies into opening a third lane on the westbound span of the bridge to vehicle traffic. The first study by MTC will look at whether the westbound span can bear the load of a third lane of vehicle traffic as well as a movable barrier that would be used to separate traffic from a pedestrian and bicyclist lane that is set to open later this year. The study is estimated to cost $950,000.
A second study by MTC and the Transportation Authority of Marin, or TAM, is looking at how opening a third lane on the bridge would affect traffic congestion in Marin County. TAM allocated $148,000 for the study earlier this year.
The eastbound span of the bridge opened up a third lane about a year ago to relieve congestion. The plan for the westbound span as of now is to open the third lane to pedestrians and bicyclists this summer. TAM is also considering opening that lane to traffic during the morning commute and evening commute hours.
Marin County Supervisor Damon Connolly — who serves on the governing boards of the MTC, Bay Area Toll Authority and TAM — has spearheaded the push to open the third traffic lane. He said it’s necessary to look at relieving congestion in the short term as well the overall lifespan of the bridge.
“People are very frustrated with the amount of traffic through this corridor and it’s incumbent on us to work with community and with the agencies involved to find solutions,” Connolly said.
Westbound traffic has increased from 68,000 cars in 2013 to 82,000 cars, according to TAM. Peak delays in the morning commute are around 22 minutes or more, with that number expected to increase to at least 27 minutes by 2020.
If it turns out that the westbound span can support a third lane of vehicle traffic, there would need to be several changes made on the Richmond and San Rafael sides of the bridge, Goodwin said. This could include a widening of the Interstate 580 overcrossing over Main Street at San Quentin Village, relocation of the westbound I-580 onramp near the Marin Rod & Gun Club in San Rafael and a widening of westbound Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.
As to how long this process could take, it took nearly four years to open a third lane on the eastbound span, which Goodwin said was mostly to deal with traffic impacts to Marin and Contra Costa counties.
“It’s not a simple striping job,” Goodwin said. “It’s the whole corridor. Really it starts at the Richmond Parkway onramp and extends out to Sir Francis Drake.”
Other work is ongoing, with the Bay Area Toll Authority expecting to completely remove the Richmond bridge toll booths in Contra Costa by 2021 and replace them with an electronic tolling system. Also planned is the installation of dynamic traffic signals on Richmond Parkway, which is meant to smooth the traffic flow onto westbound I-580, Goodwin said.
“We recognize that there is a lot more demand being placed on the bridge,” Goodwin said. “But delivering the suite of projects that are necessary, it will be measured not in months but in years.”
