Oakland, CA: Ramp in maze to reopen Friday

Oakland, CA: Ramp in maze to reopen Friday

www.insidebayarea.com

The MacArthur Maze freeway connector that collapsed April 29 will reopen for the Friday morning commute, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Monday, beating the state's deadline by a month and two days.

(visit the link for the full news article)



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California Highway collapses after fire.

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[edit on 26-5-2007 by UM_Gazz]

Oh, hooray! They're going to finish repairing the freeway after the tanker crash, this Friday. Which means all the horrible nightmarish traffic going right through my neighborhood will be gone! My daughter's cough of no apparent origin should clear up too.

And I bet that contractor is one happy bunny tonight. He is getting a huge wad of cash for doing a great job under deadline.

Congratulations C.C. Myers and crew.

www.insidebayarea.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 22-5-2007 by MajorMalfunction]

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction

The contractor, Rancho Cordova-based C.C. Myers Inc., would be completing the job in only 16 days and collecting the maximum $5 million early completion bonus. The contract, which C.C. Myers won with an astoundingly low $867,000 bid, set a deadline of June 27 and awarded $200,000 a day for each day the project was finished early.

You have got to be kidding me? None of this makes sense to me. First, fire collapses a steel structured overpass, then a contractor bids unbelievably low and then sets some sort of contractors record for completing the job in unheard of times so the state pays a bonus of over 5 times the amount of the original bid. Am I hearing this correctly?

That will make me lose sleep at night and I live 5 days drive from there. Also, I have never heard of bolts some 20+ feet away from a roadbed melting because a bunch of fuel caught fire down below. You people have some strange physics and economics in California.

Oh, I'm in heaven! The air quality around here is so much better already, and traffic has gone back to its tolerable sedate level. Now if they'd get rid of the barriers blocking turns across Grand Avenue, it'll be business as usual.

However, there was a story in the Oakland Tribune on Thursday that was a bit alarming:

Expert doubts ramp strength: Engineer says political pressure hurried maze reconstruction

And then there's this:

Company in maze crash loses gas-hauling license