Bidding will begin next year. It should be done in 2018, and they estimate it will cost $76 million.
Based on the new span of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge, a portion of which collapsed after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, I’m betting it will be completed between 2020 and 2025 (depending upon how many times they have to go back for more money when it goes w-a-y over budget).
(Originally, retrofitting the Bay Bridge was estimated at $230M, but then they said it would cost that much to replace it. Of course, a vanilla looking bridge wouldn’t due, so they settled on a $1.5 billion design which ultimately cost $6.9 billion and took an additional ten years. Don’t get me wrong, aesthetically, it’s a looker; but there have been murmurs over the structural integrity of the rivets they used, which if true, will make a nice piece of retrofitting contract work after they carefully disassemble the old one. Incidentally, the new Bay Bridge Span does not include any net, although at 190′ vertical clearance, it is less than the Golden Gate Bridge’s vertical clearance of 220′.)
“A million here, a million there, pretty soon you’re talking real money.”
-Unknown
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/golden-gate-bridge-suicide-barrier-vote-24329190