The Salesforce Transit Center 2nd crack in a steel beam, and the news that the last inspection of the steel said to be cracked today was in January of 2016, caused this blogger to look back at past activities of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority.
While Salesforce Transit Center was developed by Maria Ayerdi Kaplan, the steel problem, and the cost overruns as you will learn through Zennie62Media presentation of her story, were not her fault, nor that of Turner or Webcor – Obayashi.
I uncovered a May 4th 2015 press release from then TJPA Executive Director Maria Ayerdi Kaplan and construction manager Turner Construction, with Webcor – Obayashi as general contractor, that touted the Transbay Transit Center Project during what was called “Safety Week”. It went like this:
The May 4, 2015 Transbay Joint Powers Authority Press Release
San Francisco, Calif. (May 4, 2015) – Contractors at the Transbay Transit Center site in downtown San Francisco will participate in trainings throughout the week to reinforce the importance of safety on the four-block long construction site. Part of an industry-wide annual tradition, Transbay’s Safety Week will include a celebration of the project’s strong safety record to date, as well as sessions to promote continuous safety improvement.
Throughout Safety Week, each contractor on the Transbay site will provide their crews with safety training specific to their role on the project. Dennis Turchon, Senior Construction Manager for the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), explained that these safety reminders are critical on any site, especially one as large as Transbay’s.
“Our project has provided over 1.4 million craft hours to the tradeworkers of our city and state,” said Turchon. “We are extremely committed to ensuring that every worker goes home at the end of the day safely.”
The high point of Safety Week will be a two hour “safety stand-down” on Wednesday, May 6, when all workers on-site will pause to engage in four strategic safety modules. The site-wide safety training includes a session on ladder safety, one on stretch-and-flex ergonomics, and two sessions given by the City of San Francisco’s Vision Zero Task Force focusing on pedestrian safety around large vehicles and a busy worksite.
Remarking on Vision Zero’s prominent presence at Safety Week, TJPA Executive Director Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan noted that the Transbay Project is intimately connected to the surrounding neighborhood, which has sprung up in response to the Transit Center’s construction.
“The Transbay Transit Center Project is about creating a sustainable, reliable and safe public transit network, and we’ve applied those values to the construction process” said Ayerdi-Kaplan. “We appreciate that Turner Construction, our construction oversight manager, and Webcor-Obayashi Joint Venture, our general contractor, every day reinforce the importance of safety on the job-site for everyone working on our project and for the public who live and work in the surrounding neighborhood.”
The Transbay Transit Center, known as the “Grand Central Station of the West,” is a revolutionary transportation facility that will transform the South of Market neighborhood into the new heart of downtown. The Transit Center will connect eight Bay Area counties and 11 transit systems, including future High Speed Rail. The Transbay Transit Center Phase 1 is scheduled to open in late 2017. To learn more about the project, please visit our website at www.TransbayCenter.org.
The Transbay Transit Center project is made possible in part by the U.S. Department of Transportation, State of California, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Proposition K Sales Tax dollars provided by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure, San Mateo County Transportation Authority and AC Transit
Transbay Transit Center Problem Calls For More Investigations
There’s a lot of investigative work to be done regarding what caused the cracks in that steel beam. There’s also another question: are there are more of them?
Stay tuned.