This news about Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan is part of the ongoing effort to preserve her legacy as the developer of the San Francisco Transbay Transit Center.
San Francisco, Calif. (November 7, 2014 Exclusive to ZennieReport.com) – The Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan-created Transbay Joint Powers Authority aka TJPA, dignitaries and workers gathered at the construction site of the Transbay Transit Center to celebrate the emergence of the first piece of structural steel visible above ground that will form the future regional transit center and anchor the emerging neighborhood around it. The event marked the project’s latest milestone and the beginning of the structural steel assembly process scheduled to complete in mid-2016.
Transbay Joint Powers Authority aka TJPA Executive Director Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan was joined by California High Speed Rail Board Chair Dan Richard, Assembly member (now California Senator) Nancy Skinner, and Labor Leader Mike Theriault and other dignitaries to honor the occasion, which is the first time since work began in 2010 that the new Transit Center is visible at street level.
“On this day the Transbay Transit Center begins to emerge from the ground,” said TJPA Executive Director Ayerdi-Kaplan. “This steel column is the first of many that will rise together to form a Bay Area icon, a world class station that will combine eleven different public transit systems under one roof.”
Transbay Transit Center Has 22,000 Tons Of Steel
Today’s ceremony marks a new phase in the Transbay Transit Center’s progress during which the form of the new transit station will begin to reveal itself as it has previously only in renderings. More than 22,000 tons of steel will be used to construct the Transit Center, all of which was supplied and fabricated domestically in accordance with the project’s Buy America status.
Production facilities in 19 states from Washington to Delaware to Florida have been involved in providing the steel for the Transit Center, including a number of California facilities. The project has created more than 8,000 construction related jobs to date, almost 3,000 of which are associated with steel production.
“The column we are raising in celebration today was built in the United States by American labor and will be installed by American labor,” said Ayerdi-Kaplan. “With each additional column added, we will be one step closer to a City and a region that is more interconnected, more sustainable, and more economically vibrant than ever before.”
The Transbay Transit Center features an innovative design that requires many different types of steel elements, some single pieces as large as 130,000 pounds. The steel pipe columns and cast nodes that form the exoskeleton of the structure are engineered to exacting specifications that are test-fitted at the fabrication site to ensure quality. Remarkably, the column put in place during the ceremony today and all columns that will be installed feature an innovative seismically safe design not used before in the United States.
The beginning of steel assembly for the project is the most high-profile of a number of significant construction milestones recently reached at Transbay. In addition to emerging above ground, the project completed its five foot thick foundation which required 60,000 cubic yards of concrete, and began work on the new bus ramp that will connect the facility’s elevated bus deck directly to the Bay Bridge.
When finished, the Transbay Transit Center will accommodate approximately 100,000 travelers daily. Bus operations are scheduled to begin in late 2017.
About Transbay Transit Center And Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan
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.