W3 R FUXX0R3D

[zdashamber]

Is this on national news? At 3:40 AM, the Bay Area got FUXX0R3D. A tanker carrying vehicle-ready gasoline headed from 80 to 880 crashed beneath the Bay-Bridge-to-580 flyover, and the explosion and fire brought the flyover down onto the 80-to-880. Explanation for those not familiar with the Bay Area: this cuts the major node for people going from San Francisco to the East Bay. If this was a stroke in a brain, it'd be fatal.

Here's the comment I left on the SFGate News blog:

This article is way better than the main article, WTG Eve Batey. Unlike the main article it tells when the tanker blew up, which explains why no one died Thank God, and where. Now all we need explained is why there was a taxi there at 3:40 AM.

As for why the tanker blew up, that doesn't need explained. As soon as I read that it was 80 going to 580/Hayward it was obvious. That is the most insanely stupid highway interchange in the entire country. When I came here 9 years ago, I was like, "What do CA Highway Engineers smoke?!" One highway splitting into three major important highways at a single point?! With improperly canted ramps randomly suspended like spaghetti? With ramps that split themselves down the middle? It's a complete menace, unsafe at any speed. A major earthquake could hardly make it worse. Why is 80 alays backed up past Berkeley? That interchange, right there. Exploding tankers are engineering's way of putting a litte arrow on the place where a highway engineer was a moron.

If Caltrans wants to sue someone for screwing us over, they should sue themselves. Hell, we should sue them for hosing the environment and wasting our timing inching forward aiming for the correct lane in Emeryville.

The main article had a few good bits: you tell it, Joe Dorey. "We're screwed, huh?" "...major backups are expected today and for the foreseeable future."

This screws me a little: I was just on the Bay Bridge-to-580 ramp Friday late coming back from the San Francisco International Film Festival. Yesterday, I went to Marin to the Travelsmith returns sale (at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Marin Civic Center, which was a lot prettier than I expected from photos), and while I dodged the maze on purpose coming back by checking out the Berkeley Plant sale, it was 45 minutes out of my way that I usually wouldn't take. So, as long as I don't go north of where I am, or west to San Francisco, I'll only be a little screwed by all the people shunted onto my stomping grounds, 980 and 880. Hopefully. And I hate going to San Francisco and Berkeley anyway.

But this is going to fuck up the Bay Area way more than usual. Terrorism made possible by fucking stoned highway engineers.

Comments

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Terrorism made possible by fucking stoned highway engineers.

That's the thing that always gets me about the people that get hysterical over anthrax or dirty bombs or chemical weapons. Sure, you can spend a lot of time and effort to kill a few people with those... or you can use currently existing methods to do a hell of lot more damage. Tanker truck bombs on critical highways. Chlorine tankers in densely populated neighborhoods. Pairs of terrorists with with a quart of clear flammable liquid and a rag in the front and last car of a train in a tunnel. A few sticks of dynamite at the right point in any of the large number of dams upstream from towns. Hell, metallized ribbons draped over high power lines.

[prince-corwin.livejournal.com]

Not to be pedantic, but the reason for this is probably that the goal of terrorism, per se, is to terrify. Also, not to trivialize the event, but a downed span of bridge where no one died in an earth-quake prone area is probably not terrifying in itself. Critical disruption of infrastructure? Oh, yes. Terrifying? No.

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

True, the terrorism bit in my post was not technically accurate. My previous experiences with terrorism have all involved getting screwed by something collapsing, so for me this has the same result, but I recognize that motive does matter.

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

And what's with all the drive-bys on Rosie O'Donnell in that comment thread? Do people sit on top of Technorati feeds looking for chances to slam her?

[zdashamber.livejournal.com]

I think the commentors at SFGate look for excuses to be nasty to cars, bikes, liberals, and Brad Pitt. It's a bizarre bunch.

[evilmagnus]

Yeah. Destruction by Stupidity will doom us all much quicker than the terrorists.