Today we heard the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will finally undergo its long-awaited bypass surgery, and will temporarily close over Labor Day weekend this year.

This kind of super-orchestrated surgery should be a sight to behold.  The construction gods plan to remove a chunk of the existing bridge and insert another roadway section that connects to the curving bypass on Yerba Buena Island.  Check out the video here.

While driving today, you can glance at the bypass construction and signage as you arrive westbound on Yerba Buena.  It looks like you will need to veer left pretty substantially, and the speed limit will be lower as well.

That’s all well and good, but how will the driving feel on the bypass?  We suggest looking at these eastbound and westbound video simulations for a quick preview.  After a few dozen trips on the real thing, you will probably adjust and commute back and forth with ease.

More info:   To learn about the entire Bay Bridge retrofit project, just visit this web site.  There are construction cams where you can see daily progress over the past months, as well as interactive plans which illustrate different bridge elements.  You can spend hours here!

September 9th update:   Check out final snapshots of the Eastern Span closure.  Also see the entire bypass surgery, through this video made from time-elapsed Caltrans snapshots.