As promised, as part of their San Francisco Panorama broadsheet newspaper, the one-time printing of which is available today at various local booksellers for the special price $5, McSweeney's investigative report on the Bay Bridge is available online via The Public Press. The report includes multiple segments, including this nice timeline of the Bay Bridge's eastern span reconstruction, and this piece by Patricia Decker about the fabrication of the new span, which is being done by a Chinese vendor.

The main investigative piece, by Robert Porterfield and Patricia Decker, includes this up-to-the-minute bit of news about the $6.3 billion price tag for the bridge rising even higher:

Caltrans officials are expected to announce this week that problems in Asia, where the majority of the bridge is being manufactured, will push those costs even higher. Among those are problems with fabrication and shipping of critical steel components in China that could add $100 million or more to the final price tag, and international bickering over design drawings and blueprints that could ultimately cost tens of millions more.