How Does The Bay Bridge Construction Camera Help Keep Traffic Moving?
The San Francisco Bay Bridge has been shut down for the weekend to allow workers to roll a section of the old bridge away, and roll in a temporary section, while they build the new permanent bridge. Download the video here showing how they’ll do it. Web cams let you keep an eye on the whole thing. BART is running 24 hours, which inspired at least one pajama party on the BART trains. Everyone’s gearing up for all sorts of transportation confusion, despite months of warnings and efforts to redirect people. Hopefully, everyone headed for Burning Man has already left the city. All of this work is to build a replacement for the Eastern span of the Bay Bridge, the section damaged in the 1989 earthquake. Yes, it has taken 20 years to replace it. The whole thing is being filmed by National Geographic, for a show on “unprecedented construction feats.” Google Earth will show you what the finished product will look like (turn 3D Buildings on).
The reason they are doing this, of course, is to perform an astonishing feat of very large construction, namely, moving a whole section of the double-decker freeway over to insert an equally massive bit of roadway over to the new bridge detour.* San Francisco’s own Emperor Norton ordered the construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1872, and they finally built it in 1937, 70 years before the start of (part of) its replacement. posted by eye of newt at 9:44 PM on … Last I asked, private cars will be allowed to go westbound on Folsom Street up until Fremont while buses will continue westbound up to Essex to turn left and get onto the Bay Bridge to take folks to the East Bay. …
The Bay Bridge construction camera is helping keep traffic moving. By giving officials a heads up via video when there are problems, whether an accident or simply a slow down, it means those officials can begin to solve the problem as soon as they hear about it, not after having to take the time to drive or fly out to observe conditions. And, let’s face it, commuters can use the camera to decide whether to use that bridge, an alternate route, or perhaps simply stay at home, reducing traffic during snarls.
