Sorry Bicyclists- No San Rafael Bridge Trips Anytime Soon

photo courtesy of wikicommons

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on Caltrans' recent rejection of a proposal by Bay Area bicyclists to open the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to bike traffic. The ongoing tension between bicyclists and Caltrans has lasted for 30 years with the current proposal projected to cost US$55 million.

Caltrans officials said Wednesday that they will reject a consultant's recommendation that a movable barrier be installed on the upper deck of the bridge to permit bicycle and pedestrian access 21 hours a day on weekdays and all day on weekends. Caltrans views such an arrangement as unsafe.

The Marin County Bicycle Coalition was instrumental in getting the proposal to this point and worked with consultants for the rejected proposal. Caltrans has contended that the project isn't feasible given safety concerns.

New SWARM Report Does Not Concern Honey

A new study out of Portland State University ITS (TRB paper found here in doc format) discusses the efficacy of the System-Wide Adaptive Ramp Metering (SWARM) system in the Portland, Oregon area. SWARM replaces older fixed-rate metering systems that remain static regardless of the prevailing traffic conditions. This means SWARM should be sensitive to both regular fluctuations as well as non-recurrent changes. Wikipedia has a reasonable sketch of ramp metering here. Here is the abstract:

A System-Wide Adaptive Ramp Metering (SWARM) system is being implemented in the Portland metropolitan area, replacing the previous pre-timed ramp-metering system. SWARM has been deployed on six major corridors and operates during the morning and afternoon peak hours. This study entails a “before” and “after” evaluation of the benefit of the new SWARM system as compared to the pre-timed system using the existing data, surveillance and communications infrastructure. In particular, the objective of this study is to quantify the system-wide benefits in terms of savings in delay, emissions and fuel consumption, and safety improvements on and off the freeway due to the implementation of the SWARM system. A pilot study was conducted for two weeks on a 7-mile freeway corridor in an attempt to develop a strategic design for the future regional-level study. This paper discusses the selection process of the study corridor, experimental design, and the results that were obtained from the pilot study.

Caltrans has also implemented such a system (pdf format) in the Los Angeles area in 2000 and earlier (in pdf, see pages 12-13 for an overview of the Irvine SWARM).

I Can Has New Deck?

Photo courtesy of jeffc5000.

The Bay Bridge will be closed Labor Day weekend. After the major information campaign by Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, everybody in Northern California and beyond shouldn't be surprised come Friday night when the bridge is closed. Over $1 million has been spent to advertise the closure. Despite this effort, some travelers won't be satisfied. Hopefully engineering firm C.C. Meyers will work as efficiently as they did on the MacArthur Maze Meltdown.

If you do need to cross the bay this holiday weekend, plan ahead. BART will be running trains around the clock to compensate.

Caquinez Bridge is Coming Down.

Today the old Carquinez Bridge is coming down.

The 1927 Carquinez Bridge is dying a slow, meticulous death.

The steel cantilever bridge, which carried eastbound traffic across the Carquinez Strait for nearly 80 years, was replaced in 2003 by a handsome, two-tower suspension bridge and now is being dismantled.

"I wish they'd just blow it up,'' said one person watching the operation, who did not want to be identified. "This is kind of dull. They're being very safe -- slow and methodical.''

That's because the old bridge is one of three bridges spanning the strait between Crockett and Vallejo within yards of one another. The new Al Zampa Memorial Bridge sits to the west of the old bridge, and a 1958 span carrying westbound Interstate 80 traffic sits to the east, leaving only so much room for crews to maneuver. Workers also must be careful not to drop anything into the waters below, which serve as a salmon run and natural habitat for delta smelt.

The Carquinez Bridge built in 1927 was the first steel bridge in the Bay Area. Caltrans determined that the old bridge was unfit for seismic retrofitting, allowing for the construction of the new Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge in 2003.