California's Most Ambitious Public Works Project - 1

"How do you build a bridge in a region that is bordered by some of the most dangerous fault lines in the world? If you're the California Department of Transportation, you pull out every engineering trick in the book.

The agency, known locally as Caltrans, is in the midst of what is being called the most ambitious public works project in California's history: the replacement of the eastern half of the historic San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. In its place, Caltrans is erecting a modern concrete span consisting of a pair of 1.2-mile-long viaducts followed by the world's first single-tower, self-anchored suspension bridge. The project will be completed by 2010 at the earliest and is expected to cost a whopping $5 billion. "