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Flash: New Bay Bridge Will Open Tonight

By Dan McMenamin (BCN)
Monday September 02, 2013 - 05:51:00 PM

The Bay Bridge will be opening tonight, hours earlier than scheduled, transit officials announced this afternoon. 

The bridge has been closed since last Wednesday while construction crews finalize work on the new eastern span connecting Oakland to Yerba Buena Island. The bridge was scheduled to be reopened by 5 a.m. Tuesday but the work was finished faster than anticipated and it will open at some point tonight, Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty said. He did not specify exactly what time the bridge is expected to reopen. 

Dougherty made the announcement at a celebration held in Oakland this afternoon for the new span, a self-anchored suspension bridge that is replacing an old cantilever bridge that opened more than 75 years ago.