New Toll Operations Facility Heralds Transformation at Bay Bridge
Hoisting a giant pair of scissors to cut a ceremonial red ribbon, MTC and Bay Area Toll Authority Chair Adrienne Tissier, MTC Commissioner and Caltrans District 4 Director Bijan Sartipi, and Don Bourne, Operations Manager for Swinerton Builders, teamed up Monday, March 19 for a small ceremony to officially unveil a new, seismically safe Toll Operations Building at the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Toll Plaza.
Presenting Sartipi a key to the striking white facility, Tissier noted that while landscaping work remains to be done and some new glass panels must still be installed along an exterior walkway, the completion of the 10,600 square foot building marks the first step in what will be a dramatic visual transformation of the Oakland Touchdown area at the east end of the bridge. The architecture of the new building, which was designed by HNTB Corp. and constructed by San Francisco-based Swinerton, pays tribute to the new Bay Bridge East Span, with exterior fins evoking the shear link beams on the signature 525-foot tower of the new bridge, which is slated to open to traffic in September 2013.
The new Toll Operations Building replaces a much larger facility immediately to the west, which dates to the opening of the Bay Bridge in 1936. This older structure will be carefully demolished over the next few months. Due in large part to the advent of the FasTrak® electronic tolling system, and the corresponding decline in the number of motorists paying tolls with cash, fewer toll collectors are needed today than in years past.
“The first thing you notice about the new Toll Operations Building,” said Tissier, “is that it’s only about one-third the size of the old facility. Starting in 2007, BATA and Caltrans worked closely together to design the project to account for the changing nature of toll operations. This partnership shrank construction costs to less than $17 million from an original estimate of more than $40 million.”
Despite its comparatively small size, there’s a lot packed into the new building, which houses not just the operations center for manual toll operations but also the electronic toll accounting system and bridge monitoring systems for the Bay Bridge — and comes complete with offices, a conference room and locker rooms for the toll collectors. The building also serves as a retail outlet for motorists who wish to enroll in the FasTrak program.
“The old building served its purpose well for more than 75 years,” continued Tissier, “But it posed a major seismic safety risk. And we at BATA are pleased that this stunning new facility will provide a handsome, safe and efficient workplace for our friends in Caltrans’ Toll Collection group.”
As with most construction projects, plenty of challenges were encountered along the way. Not the least of these was the site itself — a virtual island in the middle of a busy freeway. Construction could not interfere with either traffic or toll collection. The numerous utilities that cross through the site proved to be another challenge. While the locations of many utility lines were known before construction started, others were only discovered during the course of the work.
“Every one of these challenges was overcome,” said Tissier, “And today we see the results. While the new building might be painted white, under the skin it’s deep green. The facility was constructed to the Green Building Council’s LEED Silver standard: minimizing construction waste, using recycled materials and other sustainable design practices, and using power and water far more efficiently than the old building did.”
In addition to the Bay Bridge Toll Operations Building, FasTrak toll tags are available online at www.511.org or www.bayareafastrak.org, at Safeway, Walgreens and Costco locations around the Bay Area, and at the toll operations buildings at all seven of the region’s state-owned toll bridges.