Bay Area crash yields commuters’ nightmare

MSNBC Webtv The Oakland Tribune ^ | 5-3-07 | Noah Berger

[MPJackal]

“I have it on no less an authority than Rosie O’Donuts that fire has never melted steel,”

True, true, but Rove loosened the bolts and the shifting hot liquid magma asphalt caused it to come down. Bridges don’t fall like that. Either that or Bush was testing his earthquake machine. The fire was a diversion, just like he did with the planes. Hey, that’s not bad. Someone should float that over at DU.

[sergeantdave]

This is an environmental opportunity for California liberals to get out of their cars, burn their hovels, crawl into a crevice and dig grubs from the earth with a stick.

[in the Arena]

the heat of a burning gasoline tanker truck weakened part of one overpass, crumpling it onto another.

Well, here's a little emperical evidence for Rosie O and the other 9/11 conspiracy nuts...Fire can burn concrete and steel...

[Rumplemeyer]

I’m glad thats been settled.

[Rumplemeyer]

I saw on the news tonight that Cleveland Wrecking Co. started taking the old structure down.

Any more news from your side, they are treating it as a minor issue here in the NY market.

[supercat]

The reason to use steel, rather than the more quickly produced concrete has to do with seismic concerns.

For situations like this, would it make any sense to construct a 'quick and dirty' fix to alleviate congestion, to buy time to build the "real" bridge? Since the bridge exists to cross over a section of roadway rather than a geological feature, perhaps things could be rerouted to a temporary crossing of some sort? Even if it were restricted to passenger cars it could still alleviate congestion.

[JRios1968]

CALTRANS is treating this just like they treated the 1989 Loma Prieta and 1994 Northridge earthquakes...this is now the #1 priority for all of CALTRANS, together with the Bay Bridge replacement, and maybe even higher (I haven’t heard what came out of the top-level emergency meeting they had today.)

[JRios1968]

...would it make any sense to construct a 'quick and dirty' fix to alleviate congestion, to buy time to build the "real" bridge?

Actually, no...there is no place to switch the traffic to once the situation starts. The priority now is to get the bridge back up, and might as well do so with the permanent structure. During the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the I-880 through San Jose collapsed, and it was made of rigid concrete...the McArthur Maze (made mostly of flexible steel) shook but held.

[Lexinom]

At least nowadays, give 1) technology, and 2) the fact many there are in the tech sector, many employees might be able to arrange for telecommuting while this goes on.

I don't miss that traffic one iota, but I do feel for my friends down there.