There wasn't a negotiation. Caltrans wanted it done before Memorial Day weekend and saw that the economy was losing money from the extra costs of not having that part of the maze in place and so created a structure that had very large bonuses and very large penalties.
> The collapsed section of Interstate 580 will be rebuilt and reopened to traffic within 50 days under a Caltrans plan to speed up repairs on the MacArthur Maze, officials announced Thursday.
> Nine construction companies have been given the weekend to prepare proposals to do the work, which Caltrans Director Will Kempton said should cost less than $20 million. Caltrans will choose one of the companies by Monday evening, rushing a bidding process that normally would take months.
> The firms must repair the collapsed freeway by June 29 or face $200,000 a day in penalties from the state. But should they finish the work ahead of schedule, they'll earn a $200,000-a-day bonus for each day they were ahead of the deadline, Kempton said.
> "There is absolutely no question in my mind that any incentives paid to achieve early opening is money well spent," he said at a news conference in Sacramento.
> The clock starts running Tuesday morning, Kempton said, and the contractor is expected to start work immediately.
> ...
> Kempton said that the bonus money offered to open the freeway before June 29 is based on what officials estimate the closures are costing the state. Caltrans will pay for the project initially from a highway safety account, but federal officials have said they will reimburse California for the repairs.
> A state projection concluded that the connector collapse had cost $90 million, based on a $6 million per day economic impact estimate. This includes a $491,000 loss in toll revenue for the Oakland Bay Bridge
Sounds like $200,000 a day for bonus payments was nothing.
Thank you for clarifying. I watched the documentary. So incredibly inspiring. Everyone working on this job knew they were helping solve a major issue and contributing to an extraordinary effort - from the steel workers to the government officials eliminating multiple blockers to the workers to the company owners.
Incredible sense of teamwork, collaboration, support, care, pride in a job well done.
To me, it is efforts at this scale and quality that make “America great” and lets me reclaim the meaning of this phrase.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/04/...
> The collapsed section of Interstate 580 will be rebuilt and reopened to traffic within 50 days under a Caltrans plan to speed up repairs on the MacArthur Maze, officials announced Thursday.
> Nine construction companies have been given the weekend to prepare proposals to do the work, which Caltrans Director Will Kempton said should cost less than $20 million. Caltrans will choose one of the companies by Monday evening, rushing a bidding process that normally would take months.
> The firms must repair the collapsed freeway by June 29 or face $200,000 a day in penalties from the state. But should they finish the work ahead of schedule, they'll earn a $200,000-a-day bonus for each day they were ahead of the deadline, Kempton said.
> "There is absolutely no question in my mind that any incentives paid to achieve early opening is money well spent," he said at a news conference in Sacramento.
> The clock starts running Tuesday morning, Kempton said, and the contractor is expected to start work immediately.
> ...
> Kempton said that the bonus money offered to open the freeway before June 29 is based on what officials estimate the closures are costing the state. Caltrans will pay for the project initially from a highway safety account, but federal officials have said they will reimburse California for the repairs.