News stories that East Bay progressives and environmentalists shouldn’t miss:
1. Caltrans officials circumvented the agency’s own regulations, along with state and federal standards, when establishing specifications for the giant bolts that snapped on the Bay Bridge, the Chron$ reports. As a result, the huge bolts were made to be too hard and then broke because they were brittle. So far, 32 bolts have snapped, but there are a total of 1,200 pieces on the new bridge that are at risk of breaking as well. One expert told the newspaper that Caltrans’ jury-rigged system for designing bolts was, at minimum, “irresponsible,” and possibly fraudulent.
