BRIDGE BUILDING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23004, 6 October 1936, Page 18

BRIDGE BUILDING

AMERICAN EFFICIENCY COMPARISON WITH SYDNEY The speed and efficiency with which American engineers have carried out simultaneously at San Francisco the construction of two of the largest bridges in the world without serious labour trouble and without saddling the taxpayers of San Francisco with a heavy burden of debt form a striking contrast (says the New Zealand Herald) to the history of the Sydney Harbour bridge, which cost twice as much as estimated and took seven years '.o build. Thrown across the actual headlands of the famous Golden Gate, the bridge of that name is the largest and highest single span suspension bridge in the world, extending 9000 feet from shore to shore. The towers are 746 feet above the water, and the clearance of the span above mean high water is 220 feet. The ground-breaking ceremony took place on February 26, 1933, and the bridge, on which 632 men have been steadily employed, will be ooen for traffic on May 1, 1937. The total cost of the bridge will be £6,700,000, which it is estimated will be repaid by tolls in 35 years. WORLD'S LARGEST BRIDGE An even greater undertaking is the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge, which will join San Francisco to the mainland to the east. It is the largest bridge in the world and spans the largest major navigable body of water yet bridged. Work on the bridge was started in July, 1933, and it will be opened on November 7 of this year. There have been 6500 men employed on the bridge over the three-year period. The most interesting fact about the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge is the way in which its construction costs have been borne. The bridge, which will have cost £15,440,000 when completed, has been financed by revenue bonds without taxation or liens against the taxpayers. The bonds, bearing 4 : ; per cent, interest, are being sold to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation at a discount to yield 5 per cent, to maturity. The approaches to the bridge have been financed by the, California

State Legislature, at a cost of over £1,000,000. as a loan from the Northern California petrol tax allotment. An allotment of £12.000,000 for the bridge was made by the United States Government, and about £1,300,000 was saved during construction from the estimates of the total cost. An additional and final loan of £2.400,000 has been requested from the Government to complete the financing. Several millions more will be the State's contribution. It is anticipated that the tolls will bring in ample revenue to repay all sums lent and to meet the overhead expenses, within 20 years. ESTIMATED COST DOUBLED

Against these examples of American efficiency can be placed the Sydney Harbour bridge, which has been described by an Australian authority as "a £5,000,000 proposition which had cost £10,000,000 by the time it was finished, the double amount being accounted for by handing out any payment that was demanded by the men who were working on it."

The capital cost of the bridge was set out at £10,057.170 in the report of the New South Wales Auditor-general for 1932-33. To the contractors, Dorman, Long and Co.. Ltd., £4,810,516 was paid. Wage variations involved payment of £512,641, and excess overhead costs £41,693. The Public Works Department expended £5.246,654. In this total the chief items were approaches, £2,065,429; resumptions, £1,339,027; and interest on expenditure during- construction, £1,414,401. The toll revenue from the bridge, which took approximately seven years to build, is estimated at £400,000 a year. The sum of £67,000 is paid each year on account of the bridge from the consolidated revenue, and a special tax collected from city and suburban ratepayers yields about £96,000 a year. It is expected that the bridge will not be self-supporting until 1938, and that the toll will not be dropped for 52 years.