Completely open, except for a few planned closures related to construction of the new span and two closures for emergency repairs, one after the 1989 earthquake and one in 2009. It's a major commute artery, so there's no way it could have been fully or even partially closed for that long -- all the planned closures were over holiday weekends.
It's kind of a long story, but the short version: the state was already looking at doing a seismic retrofit of the Bay Bridge (which is actually two separate bridges connected by an island) before the 1989 earthquake, and they decided it would be better to tear down the eastern span and rebuild. (The western span was retrofitted, a job that took several years but has been complete for awhile.) Then, in 1989, a portion of the eastern span's upper deck fell down onto the lower deck, which in theory pushed the timeline up, but bickering over the bridges placement and design and cost delayed construction so many times that it didn't even start until 2002 (with an estimated 2007 opening), and then was shut down in 2004 while they got back to arguing. The new bridge is really lovely, but imho it's not worth the extra time, cost, and years of putting trust in a safety hazard. (And that's not hindsight talking; I've always felt that way.) We are damn lucky that there wasn't another major quake during that time.
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It's kind of a long story, but the short version: the state was already looking at doing a seismic retrofit of the Bay Bridge (which is actually two separate bridges connected by an island) before the 1989 earthquake, and they decided it would be better to tear down the eastern span and rebuild. (The western span was retrofitted, a job that took several years but has been complete for awhile.) Then, in 1989, a portion of the eastern span's upper deck fell down onto the lower deck, which in theory pushed the timeline up, but bickering over the bridges placement and design and cost delayed construction so many times that it didn't even start until 2002 (with an estimated 2007 opening), and then was shut down in 2004 while they got back to arguing. The new bridge is really lovely, but imho it's not worth the extra time, cost, and years of putting trust in a safety hazard. (And that's not hindsight talking; I've always felt that way.) We are damn lucky that there wasn't another major quake during that time.