Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge may reopen today, with repairs scheduled for completion by 10 a.m., local time, after which stress tests are planned.

Inspections will be held more frequently on the bridge, which was shut Oct. 27 after a crossbar and two steel tie rods came loose and fell, Caltrans Director Randell “Randy” Iwasaki said yesterday at a press conference.

The bridge will be inspected every three months instead of once every two years, Iwasaki said. Some of the bridge’s lanes will also be closed every Saturday to allow crews to monitor the repairs, he said.

The 8.4-mile (13.5-kilometer) bridge, built in 1936, won’t open in time for the morning rush hour today, Dale Bonner, California secretary of business, transportation and finance said yesterday at a news conference.

Morning commuters will probably have to rely on Bay Area Rapid Transit trains for a second day after the closing of the bridge pushed the number of riders to a record high.

The shutdown yesterday forced motorists from Oakland, Berkeley and other East Bay suburbs to drive north and take the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge into San Rafael, then head south over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. Another option was to drive south to the San Mateo Bridge, then head north to San Francisco.

Bonner said the repaired bridge will be safe.

“We’re confident this fix won’t pose a risk to the public,” Bonner said. “If we thought that it would, we clearly would not open the bridge tomorrow.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net; Ryan Flinn in San Francisco at rflinn@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 30, 2009 03:01 EDT