November 21, 1989
Dear Everyone:
Yes, the
Bridge is OPEN!!!
Whaddya mean, which bridge?
Last Friday night, at 11:59 pm, they officially
reopened the Bay Bridge. Why
at such an hour? Because
they wanted to wait until the last minute and still be able to say that
it was opened exactly one month to the day after it abruptly closed
itself.
Personally, I waited until Sunday morning to go
down and try it out. Since I
am currently the driver of my van pool, I though it prudent to make sure
that we could get across before I took a load of people with me.
So I got up bright and early Sunday morning (not because I wanted
to – that was as late as my could would let me sleep) and headed for
Oakland in my car.
Fortunately, I filled the tank before I left.
I decided to try the usual route first.
This calls for by-passing the San Francisco exit off Highway 24
and getting off at 27th Street in Oakland.
You turn onto west Grand and follow it until it ceases to be West
Grand and becomes an overpass that goes up and over the Maze and comes
down into a carpool lane to the right of the toll plaza.
You know it’s bad news when a major thoroughfare
like West Grand is blocked by what looks like a giant junk pile.
There’s even a fence across the street to keep people out.
I tried going around the giant junk pile and even found the place
where West Grand becomes the overpass; but it was also blocked, this
time by cones and CalTrans trucks parked across the roadbed.
Just to be on the safe side, they’d added a sign:
“Closed”.
While it is true that “you’re never lost if you
have a full tank of gas”, I don’t recommend wandering around in West
Oakland if you can avoid it.
Ultimately, I did find my way back to the functioning section of West
Grand and from there back to the freeway.
So, then I drove back towards home; got off the
freeway; got turned around; got back on the freeway and again headed for
the bridge. This time, I
took the San Francisco exit, followed the signs along the more
conventional route and made it to the toll plaza without any trouble.
Traffic was light and I had no trouble getting across the bridge.
Interestingly, all the cars slowed down as they got to the
cantilever section where the collapse took place.
The only sign of it now is the roadbed, which is concrete instead
of asphalt like the rest of the road.
The bridge itself gleams, having been cleaned all
over and under. CalTrans
took advantage of the lack of traffic and scheduled as much cleaning and
minor repair work as they could during the interval.
It must feel good to be able to say you’re 18 months
ahead of schedule on your
work.
I made sure that our usual exit at Fremont Street
was open, then turned around to head for home.
Just to make sure, I took the route that we would take to use the
carpool lane to get onto the bridge from San Francisco.
This calls for a left turn, then a series of right turns that
take you down and under the bridge and up on the far side.
So I turned right onto Beale Street and saw the
biggest pair of braces I’ve
ever seen, starting at the base of the bridge and going up into the
first tower. The bases of
the braces were easily more than 6 feet in diameter.
Luckily, no one was driving behind me, because I think I slammed
on the brakes. Anyway, the
carpool lane was open so we are now driving the van to and from work
again.
However,
it’s not over yet. There is
basically only one way onto the bridge from the Oakland side and many of
the on and off ramps on the SF side are still closed.
Which means everyone will be trying to use the few that are open.
We’re looking at major gridlock in the weeks/months ahead.
As to why I’m driving the van?
Simple: No one else
wanted to do it. Well,
I didn’t want to do either,
but I have a more highly refined sense of responsibility than some other
people. After much grousing
by various van riders, I agreed to try it for the month of November.
This was before the Great BFDGB (Bridge-Fall-Down-Go-Boom).
As it is, I’ve driven the van exactly twice so far.
My schedule being what it is, I may drive it 2-3 more times this
month and then it will be December.
But we’ve come up with a possible plan:
Each person will be the driver for one week.
That way, you go 13 weeks before it’s your turn to drive again.
I’ve agreed to handle the paperwork (Records Management strikes
again!) and those people who are actually too terrified of driving a
15-passenger van can pay one of the others to take their week.
(Actually, that 15-passenger van is easier to drive – and park! –
than “Jeannie’s” CRX. The
little brute doesn’t have any power steering.)
Anyway, it beats riding
BART halfway to Daly City
in order to get onto a Concord-bound train.
In other news…
“Melanie” says that I don’t have a cold, I have the
flu; which is why, after 2 weeks, I’m still coughing, sniffling,
sneezing, sleepy, grumpy, dopey and all the other Dwarves.
“Marshall”, however, doesn’t favor calling it the BART cold.
He likes corporate names like:
The Chevron Cold; the Bechtel Bug; the IBM Virus.
It’s only a matter of relativity, but I
am feeling a little better each day.
And I suspect that my cough is only partly due to the flu.
It’s also Nature’s way of telling us the autumn has finally come
to California.
Today is my last day in San Francisco this week.
Tomorrow, “Kevin” and I are meeting in Company Park (1. Sleep in,
2. Breakfast) where we will measure everything in sight at ITC’s
“Cognitive Resources” and work on coming up with a file structure.
After that, it’s four glorious days of sleeping, eating,
sleeping, reading, sleeping, watching TV, sleeping…
I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.
Love, as always,
Pete
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