Construction on the last four of two dozen, football field-sized sections of pre-assembled roadway skeleton are nearly complete in China. When they are done, they will be loaded onto giant ships and sailed to Oakland, some 6,500 miles away. They will then be connected to the already-assembled sections of the Bay Bridge like a giant erector set.
Workers will then pour the concrete, paint the lane markers. However, the vast majority of the steel work will be done in China. The state said this will save hundreds of millions of dollars in overall cost, while detractors say that outsourcing for the steel cost Americans good jobs.
From the New York Times:
At a sprawling manufacturing complex here, hundreds of Chinese laborers are now completing work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Next month, the last four of more than two dozen giant steel modules – each with a roadbed segment about half the size of a football field – will be loaded onto a huge ship and transported 6,500 miles to Oakland. There, they will be assembled to fit into the eastern span of the new Bay Bridge.
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