Caltrans contractors will mobilize for a major demolition project on the Bay Bridge over Labor Day, which means the lower deck will be closed over that holiday weekend.

More than 9,000 yards of concrete will be demolished during the project, and the subcontractor will mobilize sixteen hammers from around the country, including three of the largest hammers in the United States.

The labor will continue for 77 consecutive hours to ensure the work gets done before the work week begins on Tuesday.

Cleveland Wrecking, a subcontractor on the project, is pulling 85% of its operations and equipment nationwide for the weekend.

Caltrans Area Construction Manager Dennis Turschon told KCBS Reporter Margie Shafer that "we can do it in a three-day weekend, and Labor Day weekend itself had no major events in the city."

Traffic volumes over Labor Day are typically lower than on other weekends.

"There's a 49ers game that's Friday evening at 7:00 p.m., and it will be over by the time we close the lower deck of the bridge at 11:59," Turschon said. "Labor Day weekend, we're convinced, provides the best opportunity to get this work completed, and minimize the impacts to the traffic and the local communities."

The work was originally expected to take nine weekends. But Caltrans Project Manager Ken Terpstra says if all goes as expected, the weekend project will be an amazing accomplishment.

"It's just dust, dirt, and just hit it once, that brute force method, and then we're done," he told KCBS's Shafer. "And we really sail home after this weekend, and we have taken apart and put together a ten-lane freeway through downtown San Francisco."