A Kokopelli for the Bay Bridge
Nov. 11th, 2009 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keyan_bowesSome time ago, I'd posted about San Francisco's Bay Bridge. One half of it is being rebuilt and I had a chance to fly over it and get some photographs. (If you don't want to bother with the link, here's the relevant photograph - it's rotated so you can see the bend more clearly.)
It turns out that shallow S-bend in the picture above is murderous. On Monday, a big-rig went over the side, killing the driver. Apparently there have been 43 accidents there since Labor Day, when the bridge re-opened with this temporary modification.
Part of the problem is that the speed limit on the bridge is 50 mph, and on the bend it's 35. People come in at 50, and can't slow in time - especially, I suppose, if they're driving full-laden big-rigs. (I blogged earlier about a Safeway truck that overturned. Thankfully, that driver was okay.) The Caltrans people are on it, though why they're resisting the most obvious fix - reducing the speed limit to 35 on the whole bridge - I don't know.
Back in 1989, the Bridge was closed for month after the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged it. I heard that the engineers installed a Kokopelli figure as a protective talisman, though I can't find the reference now.
Anyway, I'm giving the Bridge a Kokopelli on this blog. Maybe it'll help. (But I hope they fix the speed limit.)
It turns out that shallow S-bend in the picture above is murderous. On Monday, a big-rig went over the side, killing the driver. Apparently there have been 43 accidents there since Labor Day, when the bridge re-opened with this temporary modification.
Part of the problem is that the speed limit on the bridge is 50 mph, and on the bend it's 35. People come in at 50, and can't slow in time - especially, I suppose, if they're driving full-laden big-rigs. (I blogged earlier about a Safeway truck that overturned. Thankfully, that driver was okay.) The Caltrans people are on it, though why they're resisting the most obvious fix - reducing the speed limit to 35 on the whole bridge - I don't know.
Back in 1989, the Bridge was closed for month after the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged it. I heard that the engineers installed a Kokopelli figure as a protective talisman, though I can't find the reference now.
Anyway, I'm giving the Bridge a Kokopelli on this blog. Maybe it'll help. (But I hope they fix the speed limit.)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-13 10:03 pm (UTC)I think Caltrans has been treating this as just another bit of the bridge, when really it's not. It's a problem zone. If they posted giant "25 mph, slow down, construction site, double fines for speeding" people might actually get it. And of course post it far enough in advance that the big-rigs actually *can* slow down.
- Keyan