Golden Gate Bridge
"Whut u thinkin bout?" "lol nothing, just bridge stuff."As if traffic wasn't already bad enough with people being minorly freaked out by the new Doyle Drive on-ramp this week, the Golden Gate Bridge was backed up to the gills this morning with drivers rubber necking the hell out of a massive 120+ strong SFPD presence, who were protecting the bridge and tunnel folks mainline commute from the likes of two (yes, 2 of them!) friendly looking Larkspur Ferry Boat teamsters wearing tweed suit jackets and brandishing picket signs.
It seems that nobody remembered to inform the SFPD that Occupy had canceled their planned May Day protest of the bridge. Instead, the only people who showed up to practice some very civilly obedient protesting were a pair of Larkspur Golden Gate Ferry employees, who were on strike this morning, adding even more cars to the Marin - SF commute traffic jam. While most of the riot helmet and zip-tie carrying officers were concentrated on the Presidio side of the bridge, there were upwards of a hundred of them spaced out strategically every few hundred feet on both sides of the bridge, in groups of two to ten.
No, seriously. It was just these two gentlemen vs 120+ riot cops. Instead of guarding against a protest that would have derailed the morning traffic flow, the SFPD (PS: why is the SFPD alone responsible for barricading the bridge to 'protect' Marin County from Occupy's 'vandals and hooligans'? Can't they send a few cops and deputies of their own?) and their unnecessary paramilitary presence on the Golden Gate Bridge only served to further fuck traffic up the ass. People tend to slow down and look when there's an invading army just 'hanging out' and "paTROLLING" on their commute route with no visible reason for them to be there.
On the up side, I think it's safe say that no one will be committing suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge today.
As anyone who has biked over the Golden Gate Bridge over the past month can tell you, The Bridge is an unbearable mess right now. At the beginning of June, the western side of the bridge, which is dedicated to peak hour bike usage, was closed for four months for construction. The result of this closure is now San Francisco cyclists must try to ride around the disoriented mob of tourists and photographers--a task this blogger can assure you is enough to make you leap off your bicycle and find the quickest exit from the madness.
Thankfully, the SF Bike Coalition has been taking the Golden Gate Bridge District to task over the situation, as announced in yesterday's newsletter:
The SF Bicycle Coalition asked for added measures to help bridge users understand what's going on and safely manage the capacity reduction (such as posting uniformed staff at key points to help sort things out), as well as asking the District to provide roadway space for bicycle traffic during the sidewalk closure, or at least bike shuttles across the bridge (already done for other bridge sidewalk closures). But the District claims that it can't be done.
Really? Impossible to mitigate the loss of half the bridge's non-motorized capacity? If the District had closed half of the bridge's roadway lanes for four months would they just shrug and look the other way? We're letting the District know that cramming all their summertime foot and bike traffic onto just one sidewalk is impossible -- it's time to bring real solutions to this serious (and long-planned) capacity reduction. Give bike traffic a temporary lane, or give it a shuttle. You can let them know as well -- tell the District what you think at ggb@sfbike.org. Take extra care if you do get out on the bridge, and please show some extra kindness to other folks dealing with this disruption -- now more than ever it's about giving and getting respect.
I'd also recommend taking a Xanax.
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