This is going to be inconvenient: Bridge collape outside of San Francisco

LeeH · 04-29-2007, 03:34 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070429/ap_on_re_us/highway_collapse

CurtEgerer · CurtEgerer's Garage

Government conspiracy I'm sure. Everyone knows fire can't bring down steel skyscrapers or bridges. They must have planted bombs under it and used the exploding tanker truck as a diversion .....

Nostril Cheese · 04-29-2007, 05:10 PM

good point, curt

p911dad · p911dad's Garage

Yeah, musta been thermite, only that could melt steel..

trekkor · 04-29-2007, 05:41 PM

I'm glad I don't drive down that way much.

KT

jyl · jyl's Garage

That part of the Bay Area freeway system is badly congested in normal times, as in lines of cars crawling at 2-5 mph. Its going to be terrible until they get that overpass fixed.

When we moved to Portland, I deliberately chose to live in a place from where I never have to take any freeway. Surface streets rule.

Porsche-O-Phile · Porsche-O-Phile's Garage

Pfft. Try driving in L.A. for a while. You San Fran people are a bunch of sissies.

jyl · jyl's Garage

SF Bay is in some ways worse than LA, and I lived in LA for 14 years. Because of the topography, i.e. the water, in the Bay Area there is no choice but the bridges. No way to take surface streets across the Bay.

So if you leave downtown SF at 6 pm, it can take 20-45 minutes just to get from your office to the Bay Bridge, a distance of 10-15 blocks. Then crawl across the bridge and suffer through the 580/80 maze.

When I was working in downtown LA, if the freeways were awful, you could simply take 4th or 3rd or some other surface street to go west, etc. If the 5 was bad, you could take Firestone or whatever (I'm forgetting the exact surface street tricks) and these are huge 6 lane roads that move decently well.

Another thing is, in the greater LA area, the different parts are really different zones. I seldom had a need to drive from, say, Burbank to Orange County. In the SF Bay area, I was always having to drive from downtown SF to San Jose and then back to Berkeley.

No, SF Bay Area traffic sucks. That's one reason I don't live there anymore. The price of houses is the other.

ikarcuaso · 04-29-2007, 09:01 PM

Drove past the destruction this afternoon. Not good.

MichiganMat · MichiganMat's Garage

Commuting is for sucka's

Maybe this will cause the Bay Area will finally get its act together and improve its public transit, our train system is pathetic.

widgeon13 · 04-30-2007, 03:13 AM

Just make it into an Xgames fun run and build a ramp and let people just it. You could probably charge folks as well.

vash · vash's Garage

bumming. that is my route home.

BlueSkyJaunte · 04-30-2007, 09:04 AM

Somebody tell Aurel. I'm sure he'd like to bring his vast credentials to bear in analyzing the cause of this obvious act of government sabotage.

nostatic · nostatic's Garage

I lived in both LA and SF. Would rather drive LA traffic any day of the week.

Plus it rains up there. THE HORROR!!!

Steve Carlton · 04-30-2007, 09:42 AM

That reminds me of when a fuel tanker had an accident with an AC Transit bus in one of the Caldicott Tunnel bores. There was an inferno that engulfed almost the whole tunnel and many folks were incinerated. Part of the road is still buckled to this day. So, we lost one of three tunnels for quite a while. This is in a much more critical interchange.

Porsche-O-Phile · Porsche-O-Phile's Garage

Tell me again why people feel the need to pay $500+ a square foot to live there again?

At least S.F. has a real mass-transit system that can probably take some of the heat off. If that had happened in LA, say, on the 10-405 interchange, it'd be 100X worse. Still sucks, but just sayin'.

rcecale · rcecale's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by CurtEgerer
Government conspiracy I'm sure. Everyone knows fire can't bring down steel skyscrapers or bridges. They must have planted bombs under it and used the exploding tanker truck as a diversion .....

The bridge marks the "second" time in history that fire has melted steel...

Randy

widgeon13 · 04-30-2007, 03:32 PM

Just proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that she (RO) does have shlt for brains.

Steve Carlton · 04-30-2007, 03:38 PM

She on ludes or something?

CurtEgerer · CurtEgerer's Garage

>>> fire has melted steel... <<<

To be accurate, fire will not 'melt' steel. Heat will cause steel to become distorted, resulting in buckling of columns and beams, thus the collapse. Also interesting to note that timber construction (old-style heavy timbers, not today's light-frame construction) is in many respects more fire resistant than steel! Once a layer of char forms around the timber, it acts as an insulator to protect the remaining wood.