Tuesday, May 1, 2007

This is so going to mess up the 1989 World Series

This is the beautiful, and in tact, Bay Bridge that links San Francisco, California and Oakland, California. It's no longer operable.

Bright and early Sunday morning, a gas tanker decided to ruin the collective Monday mornings of thousands of Californians. A truck carrying 8,600 gallons of gasoline blew up and melted the highway that connects San Francisco to Oakland. Officials are using "months" as the unit of measure for repairs, which has to have hundreds of thousands of people upset that they cannot instead enjoy the arrival of JaMarcus Russel and departure of Randy Moss from their respective cities.

I've done a little bit of research, and well, the situation sucks for commuters who normally use the Bay Bridge.

I selected a random address in downtown Oakland and then a random address in downtown San Francisco. According to Google Maps, a normal drive from point A to point B would cover 10.7 miles and 17 minutes.

The next best route, taking the Bay Bridge out of the equation, would have the commuter going north through San Quentin and then south across the Golden Gate Bridge into the city. New calculations?

35. 8 miles and 46 minutes.

That's 25.1 extra miles and 29 more minutes. Each way.

Of course those numbers are only good if there is no one else on the road, which certainly is not the case. Keeping in mind that the new route is already clogged with commuters, the additional 280,000 commuters who formerly used the Bay Bridge will create nightmares that are best blogged about and not endured.

What does this all mean? California, and possibly America, will panic that a terrorist attack could cripple the city and taxpayers will fund some ridiculously under used transportation alternative.

It also means that I need to be on my way to make my 19.2 mile, 26 minute drive in to Walgreens and while doing so I shall be gleefully whistling, "Hi ho, hi ho it's off to work I go."

3 comments:

Eli said...

All this makes me thankful that I have a four-minute drive to work every day.

CHCgirl said...

Exactly. It makes me love my 16 minute, 1.25 mile walk/commute.

JR said...

I drive five miles to work and curse the construction every damn day. Screw perspective.