[Noumenon]

Something as simple as a burning, diesel-soaked matterss tossed off the back of a disposable pickup truck during rush hour on oh, say, both directions of the 520 Bridge in Seattle would be a real buzzkill.

[Travis McGee]

Yep, chronic gridlock would get real old. When I was reading up for my book, I read some things about one of my fictional targets, the I-495 Wilson Bridge (at 6 oclock on the DC Beltway over the Potomac).

A few years ago a "jumper" sat on a high railing all day, and they shut the bridge down in both directions for about 6 hours.

It caused all of DC to crunch to a halt, all the way around the beltway and every street inside. Newspaper articles refered to it as "the mother of all gridlock". They changed the policy to virtually encouraging jumpers to jump, as long as the traffic kept moving.

[archy]

Something as simple as a burning, diesel-soaked matterss tossed off the back of a disposable pickup truck during rush hour on oh, say, both directions of the 520 Bridge in Seattle would be a real buzzkill.

Make it a slightly larger truck, say a deliveryman's cube van or larger U-Haul rental, add in some railroad ties and labor organizer's *jackrock* caltrops or police-issue *stopsticks* and a six-gallon bucketfull of homemade pipebombs on timers [with a few antidisturbance tumbler-fired units to discourage immediate hasty clearance] and you'd be right in business. The tactic is essentially a variation of that used by the Union raiders who hijacked the Western and Atlantic locomotive General during the War of Northern Dominance and who hoped to slow pursuing Confederate forces.

-archy-/-