Saying goodbye to the Bay Bridge

November 8, 2013 4:06 PM

Following the long-awaited replacement, which opened in September, the original east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is due to be demolished. However, before that happens, the California Highway patrol, along with MADD is inviting family and friends of those who have lost their lives in traffic crashes to visit the decommissioned original span and pay their respects at the site where their loved ones died. CHP will accompany family and friends out to the now-empty bridge span on Saturday morning so that perhaps a little closure can be gained.

"The idea for the memorial came when the bridge shut down over Labor Day weekend so Caltrans could make preparations to switch traffic to the new eastern span. Carol Leister of Castro Valley asked permission to visit the site where her son Scott died in 2008. Leister was killed when a driver the CHP says was drunk and traveling at more than 100 mph struck the car in which he was riding." See her story.

posted by otherwordlyglow (33 comments total)

No mention of the bridge troll?
posted by edgeways at 4:12 PM on November 8, 2013 [5 favorites]

I figured it was something somebody else would eventually add.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 4:16 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think if the New Orleans to Slidell crowd had been offered this opportunity before the destruction of the original I-10 Twin Span (heavily damaged by Katrina, hastily repaired and used with fingers crossed until the new span was completed) there would have been more people showing up to piss on it than to honor the dead.
posted by localroger at 4:46 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I want to know if it'll be possible to get a piece from the demolishment.

Also, I sure wouldn't mind a chance at skulking around on the old bridge.
posted by rhizome at 6:54 PM on November 8, 2013

Have any intrepid urban explorers made it onto the old span and documented in photos and blog post yet?
posted by wemayfreeze at 7:33 PM on November 8, 2013

I was almost born on that bridge.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 7:40 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

Looks like Chevette has pulled her last tag.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 7:48 PM on November 8, 2013 [5 favorites]

"I want to know if it'll be possible to get a piece from the demolishment."

I have no doubt that some entrepreneur has already bought a fairly good-sized chunk to sell at tourist traps for decades to come.
posted by Ardiril at 8:02 PM on November 8, 2013

I was almost born on that bridge.

I want to meet somebody who was conceived on the bridge.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:17 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have no doubt that some entrepreneur has already bought a fairly good-sized chunk to sell at tourist traps for decades to come.

...so you're saying it's already for sale?
posted by rhizome at 8:29 PM on November 8, 2013

What a thoughtful city/regional bureaucracy
posted by five fresh fish at 9:59 PM on November 8, 2013

What happens to all that steel?
posted by specialk420 at 10:15 PM on November 8, 2013

What happens to all that steel?

It'll probably be shredded and shipped overseas to be turned into cars and appliances.
posted by davey_darling at 10:24 PM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

"it's already for sale?" - Sure, and I take paypal.
posted by Ardiril at 10:47 PM on November 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

taking down that bridge is just dumb. We should be maintaining it and using it for a bikeway or some other mode of transport **until the new bridge proves itself in an earthquake**. This has been suggested by more than one respectable engineer. What a waste!
posted by Vibrissae at 1:31 AM on November 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Saving it for pedestrian and bicycle use sounds pretty cool. What sort of life span would the bridge have and how much would it cost to maintain it?

I would think the lifespan would be greater with the lighter loads, but the elements still take the same toll.
posted by psycho-alchemy at 2:49 AM on November 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

One would hope San Franciscans would have an instinct at least as gorgeously romantic as the one they had in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, but dotcom millions were a hell of a drug.
posted by sonascope at 5:43 AM on November 9, 2013

Saving it for pedestrian and bicycle use sounds pretty cool. What sort of life span would the bridge have and how much would it cost to maintain it?

I would think the lifespan would be greater with the lighter loads, but the elements still take the same toll.

On a bridge like that, I think the loads don't make a whole lot of difference to the longevity of the bridge. The only thing that lighter loads would do would be to lower the safety limits of the bridge. The bridge will deteriorate and become unsafe for trucks and cars, but not for pedestrians and bikes.

I also think the expense would be tremendous. Bridges barely break even with thousands of cars paying tolls every day. I doubt bikers and walkers would want to pay toll to use it.
posted by gjc at 5:54 AM on November 9, 2013

Maintaining a bridge is expensive. Without maintenance, one day it will fall down. I suspect they are more worried about the impact that might have on the Bay than on the nonexistent traffic no longer moving across the bridge.
posted by localroger at 6:42 AM on November 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

. for the losses of loved ones and the loss of tangible symbols of memorializing that loss.
posted by stevil at 8:02 AM on November 9, 2013

I'd like a chance at destroying the annoying rumble strips.
posted by mulligan at 10:40 AM on November 9, 2013

To be sure, the rumble strips were only added as part of the slowdown after that semi took a header over the side after the reroute.

And yeah, the problem with repurposing it is earthquakes. The segment that fell in '89 did not fall because there were too many cars, but because the bridge shook.

I do want a section of I-beam with the cross-brackets for a coffee table, though.
posted by rhizome at 11:35 AM on November 9, 2013

I do want a section of I-beam with the cross-brackets for a coffee table, though.

Do you have a door wide enough to admit the forklift you'll need to move it? (section that size will come in around 1,000 lb.)
posted by localroger at 12:12 PM on November 9, 2013

Details.
posted by rhizome at 12:50 PM on November 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

So they're shutting down a bridge that was part of everybody's life for, what, 80 years, and only the tiny minority who have bad associations with it get to engage with that?

The Bay Bridge is not and never was a killing field. It's a landmark and it's part of the fabric of millions of people's memories. Maybe tourists, or even San Franciscans, think about the Golden Gate, but to me, as an Oakland kid, "the bridge" was always the Bay Bridge. And it's brought a lot to the whole area for years; the Bay Area would be a very different place without it.

For me, as a child, the bridge was the way to Grandma's house. Even the smell was different on the other side. The sounds of the roadbed, especially, still bring back falling asleep in the car on the way home. I remember slowly growing old enough, trip by trip, to notice the stages of the constant tower repainting. And later on it was the way to what really was "the city", perhaps most before so much of San Francisco's sense of possibility crossed back over that very same bridge.

I'm not much into nostalgic memorials, but if the old span needs to be remembered, there's something really sad about the mindset that would choose such a way of remembering it. A giant party would have been more fitting.
posted by Hizonner at 3:00 PM on November 9, 2013 [6 favorites]

The western span's the one with the towers, and it remains iconic & unaltered, although plenty of folks were confused about that. The (ugly-ass and seismically dangerous) eastern span has been replaced, it's odd to characterize it as "shutting down."
posted by kelseyq at 3:18 PM on November 9, 2013

The towers aren't the point. At all. As far as I can see, the only person who's mentioned the towers was me, and that was in the context of the painting. They paint the whole thing, and the whole thing has always been a unit in some way. They're making quite a change in that unit.

And, yes, they're shutting down a part of it. The fact that they're not shutting the whole Bay bridge down might argue for holding no event, but it doesn't argue for holding only that kind of event. The bridge never had a "charnel section".
posted by Hizonner at 3:35 PM on November 9, 2013

I wonder how the people got invited, are they all MADD members/donors? Did they try to find surviving kin for every death?
posted by rhizome at 5:53 PM on November 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

They weren't so much "invited" but the event was publicized and those who wanted to could contact CHP to participate. I imagine there was some sort of vetting/validating process to determine what connection one had to one of the victims/decedents.

Here's today's coverage of the event. It's pretty touching. One of the participants had a daughter who jumped from the bridge so I guess it wasn't just traffic collisions.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 7:14 PM on November 9, 2013

The sounds of the roadbed, especially, still bring back falling asleep in the car on the way home.

Not just for you.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:06 PM on November 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think the logic runs: most of the Bridge is intact, and the people to whom that piece of the Bridge is likely to matter are those to whom the stretch is very personal. The most readily identified of those would be those who lost someone there.
posted by gingerest at 9:07 PM on November 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's really cool.
posted by latkes at 10:42 PM on November 9, 2013

I think the logic runs: most of the Bridge is intact, and the people to whom that piece of the Bridge is likely to matter are those to whom the stretch is very personal.

Yeah, well, I almost hit the obtuse curb corner, in the rightmost lane east of YB where the lower deck bent, like 10,000 times.
posted by rhizome at 1:12 PM on November 10, 2013