The Bridge to Sodom

OK, this is where I can get into trouble. I could have called this posting something more politically correct; but chose not to because that would not be expressing my true opinion.

On October 17th, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck northern CA. During this earthquake a section of the double decker Bay Bridge failed and amazingly only one person was killed. The bridge was repaired by November 18th and plans were laid for a new Bay Bridge. Now, I will be the first to admit the majority of the existing Bay Bridge is not visually appealing. It was originally built with one thing in mind - to bring the maximum number of cars across the Bay from Oakland to San Francisco along with trains . It is the extremely ugly sister to the magnificent Golden Gate bridge.

In the late 1990s a Bay Area panel was charged with coming up with a bridge design but the process spun out of control. What was supposed to take six months took 16 as a long line of government agencies and special interest groups weighed in. The Navy complained about shadows cast by a new bridge. Politicians gave conflicting signals about what they wanted. Costumed activists showed up at hearings and broke into song. The new bridge, it was thought, must covey a sense of architectural majesty to not only be functional but also beautiful and went through several design changes. Cost and schedule incentives which were successfully implemented for highway repair projects after the Northridge quake were ignored. In other words, the hounds of liberal bureaucracy were turned loose.

In 1997, then-Gov. Pete Wilson signed legislation funding a new east span. The structure was expected to open by 2004 and cost $1.3 billion. Complications set in, causing delays and pushing up the price tag. Steel prices ballooned. Insurance and bonding costs increased after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. For a while, the Navy refused to allow Caltrans on Yerba Buena Island to conduct tests. By 2001, Caltrans and its financial consultants estimated the bridge would cost $2.6 billion. In 2005, the estimate swelled to $5.1 billion and present estimates are over $12 billion with a completion date of 2013. The sad thing is the new bridge will have the same capacity for automobiles as the old bridge.

When I came to the Bay area in 1995 bridge tolls were $1.00 and you could buy a book a bridge tickets at the supermarket reducing your cost to $.85 a day. A $1 seismic retrofit surcharge was added in 1998 by the state legislature, originally for eight years, but since then extended to December 2037. On March 2, 2004, voters approved Regional Measure 2, raising the toll by another dollar to a total of $3. Presently the toll is $4.00 a day and the Bay Area Toll Authority have recently stated that tolls need to be increased to $6.00 to pay for retrofits on the San Rafael and the tiny Antioch toll bridges. Based on the information above the reason for the latest toll increase appears to be a lie.

Several months ago when a support clamp failed on the Bridge, the Bridge was closed for several days and the commute was thrown into chaos. One Bay Area ferry announced that its morning ridership increased by over 700%. The sad thing is that the number of commuters was only 70, not the 10 who usually rode the boat. The local political process is completely controlled by liberal Democrats who actually think that spreading the wealth is a great thing and that you, as an evil owner of an internal combustion vehicle, need to pay for mass transit for all.

I utilize two toll bridges regularly, both of which cross the Sacramento river as part of an Interstate highway. The Bay Bridge is actually considered to be part of Interstate 80. Now the main reason for an Interstate highway is not automobile transport but for the rapid deployment of the US armed forces. But the sad reality is a lot of CA and the rest of the USA actually despises the San Francisco Bay Area due to its liberal leanings and is unwilling to pick up the tab for the bridge tolls. The Bay Area Bridge project is a poster child for what happens when liberals are given complete and absolute control and should serve as a warning to the rest of the US.

You may think that narrow minded; but the home of the leather festival ( see billboard picture above), the church of Satan, and the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a board of supervisors that has openly condemned and stated that several religious organizations including the Catholic Church is unwelcome in the city is deserving of prejudice.

To be fair San Francisco has great restaurants , theater, museums tourist attractions and is a center of commerce.

It is a great city just like Sodom.

A Voice In the Wilderness
PS -If the California GOP was not so stupid they would realize just how much the middle class in the Bay Area hates bridge tolls and would seek to have them eliminated and bring into play elections they never dreamed possible.

I used several sources for this article including Wikipedia, SF Gate, and the San Diego Tribune and a couple I may have forgot