Caltrans will close two lanes of the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge on five successive nights this week in order to make permanent repairs to the bridge deck.
That's because crews need to fix a hole that opened up on the westbound deck just east of the high-rise section on June 15. At that time, Caltrans spokesman Bob Haus said that bridge engineers determined that the hole could not be repaired with a simple patch operation. Maintenance crews secured a metal plate over the hole and reopened the bridge to traffic.
"It was about three feet wide, and it went all the way through the bridge deck," Haus said. "We definitely wanted to move on this as fast as we possibly could."
On Tuesday, crews will close that portion at 7 p.m. through Wednesday at 5 a.m. The closure hours will remain the same for the next three days, until Friday. During the closures, crews will perform the preparatory work necessary for the repair operation.
On Saturday, crews will close the two westbound lanes starting at 7 p.m. through 9 a.m. Sunday. During this time crews will make permanent repairs to the damaged section of the deck.
Commuters weren't looking forward to next few days. Don Marshall works as a fisherman in Half Moon Bay and typically heads westbound on the bridge about 4 a.m.
"If it's already backed up and then you have construction that closes up lanes, it's going to create slowdowns, you're going to get rubberneckers and it might double the commute," Marshall said.
