The SF Chronicle did a great exposé on the bay bridge earlier this year. The Chronicle explains how the committee that selected the bridge was made up of specialists in fields only tangentially related to the job at hand — seismic experts, building engineers and architects. These people had not designed bridges before, and chose the design based on aesthetics, not practicality. When given a choice between two bridges: a conventional cable-stayed one at $1.5B and an experimental self-anchored suspension at $1.7B, they chose the attention-grabbing bridge over the practical one. This led to the <i>enormous</i> cost overruns we see today.<p>Note that the bridge isn&#x27;t unsafe, the modern span is much, much safer than the old WW2 era span. The new bridge won&#x27;t collapse in an earthquake. However, because of design failures and shoddy construction, it will last much shorter than planned.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfgate.com&#x2F;bayarea&#x2F;article&#x2F;Bay-Bridge-s-troubles-How-a-landmark-became-a-6021955.php" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfgate.com&#x2F;bayarea&#x2F;article&#x2F;Bay-Bridge-s-troubles-...</a>