Bridge Comes to San Francisco With a Made-in-China Label
Workers at Shanghai Zhenhua finish the welding on a section of the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The replacement eastern span is on the right, with the city of San Francisco beyond.
The new Bay Bridge, expected to open to traffic in 2013, will replace a structure that has never been quite the same since the 1989 Bay Area earthquake. At $7.2 billion, it will be one of the most expensive structures ever built. But California officials estimate that they will save at least $400 million by having so much of the work done in China. (California issued bonds to finance the project, and will look to recoup the cost through tolls.)
