Bay Area commuters found creative ways to get to work for the second day in a row today (Thursday), setting transit ridership records as crews continued working to repair the Bay Bridge.

The California Department of Transportation hopes to finish repairs today but there's still no estimate of when the span will reopen.

Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney said this morning that welding had been completed in an area where two rods and a crossbar fell onto the upper deck Tuesday evening but that workers were still putting new steel in place.

"We aim to finish the work today," Ney said.

However, he said, once the work is completed there will still have to be hours of tests and inspections before the bridge can be reopened.

The crossbeam and rods were installed in temporary repair work done to fix a cracked eyebar spotted on the bridge over the Labor Day weekend.

The repair will be similar to the previous one, with some design enhancements including drilling out old welds on crossbars and installing deeper, stronger welds to connect crossbars and saddles into a single unit to avoid the "metal-on-metal fatigue" believed to have caused the failure, Caltrans officials said.

Ney said it's unlikely the span will be reopened in time for the evening commute today, but that it's possible it could reopen late tonight or Friday morning.

However, Ney also said that if the tests reveal any problems, the bridge could remain closed for another day or two.

BART saw record ridership Wednesday, with 437,200 people taking trains, the highest number in the agency's 37-year history, BART spokesman Linton Johnson said. The previous record of 405,400 that was set on Sept. 8, 2008.

The agency is "on pace to blow out that record" today, Johnson said.

About 88,000 people rode BART trains this morning, 5,000 more than yesterday morning's commute total.

Johnson said the agency will continue to run longer trains during commute hours and more trains during non-commute hours to handle the additional passengers.

Although on Wednesday he discussed the possibility of running overnight service, Johnson said today that there are no plans to have trains running overnight, even if the closure lasts into the weekend.

The overnight closure "is critical to make sure our trackways and trains are inspected correctly," he said. "So the decision is to use those few hours that we have overnight to keep those trains working."

Other transit enhancements, including extra staffing at other Bay Area toll bridges and various traffic adjustments, will continue today, according to Caltrans.

Commuters can get real-time traffic information by calling 511 or visiting www.511.org.

— Bay City News Service