Fremont Street to open in time for Monday morning commute

Officials with the Transbay Joint Powers Authority say they will reopen Fremont Street in time for the Monday morning commute as crews have completed installing a temporary fix at the Salesforce Transit Center.

A block of Fremont Street between Howard and Mission streets has been closed since Sept. 25 when construction crews found cracked a steel beam on the third-level bus deck of the transit center. A second cracked beam was found through further investigation of the transit center by construction engineers.

Officials say crews have completed a four-level shoring system that will help lift the weight off of the two affected beams and onto the shoring system.

Dennis Turchon, senior construction manager, had previously said the TJPA expected to reopen Fremont Street no later than Wednesday during a meeting of the TJPA Board of Directors last Thursday.

Crews have also installed a shoring system on the First Street portion of the transit center as a precaution as it shares a similar design to the Fremont Street portion of the transit center.

Ongoing testing and monitoring of the First Street portion of the transit center have found no cracks.

Turchon said once the shoring system is in place, crews can begin to take a sample of the cracked beams and send it to a lab for testing to figure out the cause of the cracks.

That process will take up to two weeks and officials will probably not know the results until the first week of November, said Turchon.

Jerold Chinn

Jerold serves as a reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief for SFBay covering transportation and occasionally City Hall and the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. His work on transportation has been recognized by the San Francisco Press Club. Born and raised in San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism. Jerold previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization. When not reporting, you can find Jerold taking Muni to check out new places to eat in the city.