The 73-year-old Bay Bridge is crossed by more than 260,000 vehicles a day. The original shutdown was for replacement of a 300-foot section of the bridge, and connection to a new S-curved detour. 

The latest Bay Bridge update has come from the Authorities which is not good news. They announced that  while replacing a section of the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge during seismic retrofittins they found a cracked eyebar--cracked steel link. This causes the officials to work round-the-clock.  Even then, the emergency repairs cannot be completed in time and the bridge will not reopen on Tuesday 5 Am as originally announced.
 

Even though the cracked eyebar had not been a danger to commuters, as the other seven links (out of total eight links)could handle the stress adequately, even without the necessity to close the bridge for the seismic retrofit, the crack, by itself, would have forced a bridge closure, the Authorities added.

 The cracked link, part of a network of eight similar pieces, is about 2 inches thick and was cracked halfway through. Crews are wrapping a custom-made steel saddle, which works like a brace around a person's knee, around the link to redistribute stress away from the area. That will be attached to another saddle, set lower down the Bay Bridge span with steel tie rods.

This makes BART as well as ferry providers to increase service for Tuesday. BART will run trains with additional cars, and ferries which will be added to routes from Alameda/Harbor Bay, Alameda/Oakland, Larkspur and Vallejo.

Commuters forced to use cars will have to drive across the Richmond-San Rafael and Golden Gate bridges or the San Mateo Bridge to get to work.

The Bay Bridge will reopen to traffic on Wednesday at 5 AM.