Results tagged “closure”

            

After a cable rod snapped during last night's commute, the Bay Bridge closed down indefinitely. Here are some images of just how the closure is affecting San Francisco and the Bay Area today.

by Chris Jones

Spectacular, isn't it?

As Labor Day Weekend creeps to a dramatic opener, getting over the Bay Bridge will come to a halt in, oh, less than six hours from now.

Starting Thursday at 8 p.m., the Bay Bridge will close down until Tuesday at 5 a.m. The cost? Well, according to KCBS, it's a lot "It's about $100,000 per day in cost for the additional BART service," John Goodwin of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Bay Area Toll Authority tells KCBS. Also, the Bay Bridge will lose somewhere around $1.8 million in toll revenues, which will be slightly offset by increases on the other bridges. Is it worth it? Yes. What with SFist headquarters located next to the bridge, it will provide your editor with a few hours more of much-needed beauty rest. Also yes, the Seismic Safety Project will bring the structure up to earthquake safety standards. Read more about the closure here.

California State Parks director Ruth Coleman said that the agency faces a total of about $39 million in cuts after the new budget, which directly states a $14.2 million cut, was signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today. Additionally, $2.4 million was siphoned from a cigarette tax fund because less people are smoking. Furloughs and salary cuts round out the large number (Note: a full budget fact sheet is embedded below).

Caltrans will extend Labor Day Weekend's Bay Bridge closure by an additional day. The extra day is needed to seamlessly shove in a section of bridge bypass at the tunnel. So, the bridge will close at 8 p.m. on Thursday Sept. 3, then open again at 5 a.m. on Tuesday Sept. 8. The bridge, by the way, will be closed in both directions. According to reports, this extra day will make "the first non-holiday weekday that the bridge has been closed since 1989 when the Loma Prieta earthquake collapsed part of the bridge deck."

It's been a chaotic morning on the roads. First, a multi-car crash screwed up the commute on the Bay Bridge. Now, according to Action News SF, "The Ninth St[reet] off-ramp from Northbound 101 is completely closed [due to] to an injury accident involving a cement truck." Traffic head to the East Bay, though, looks fine -- at least according to the view outside SFist HQ.

According to the Gate, le Richmond Bart is closed and "trains are being turned around at El Cerrito Del Norte BART" after a man wearing "an Indiana Jones-style hat got on board an Amtrak train in Martinez and asked other passengers strange questions," leaving a "package that appeared to have wires sticking out of it," and then heading to a second car where he pried off two windows. (God, the Bay Area is just awesome sometimes.) He then jumped out the window. Yikes.

Is there anyplace in San Francisco more charming than SOMA at night? No, there is not. And this President's Day, it'll be even charminger: construction and traffic reroutes on the Bay Bridge may cause a few heavy-flow days over the holiday weekend. If you're clever, you'll probably want to avoid SOMA in the late-night and early-morning hours. But then again, if you're clever, you probably already do.

Nature lovers will be peeved.

"Mean nut" restaurateur Luisa Hanson -- you know, the person more or less responsible for the Barleycorn closure -- had a swift bit of karma hurled at her head last week. It seems that her flagship, whimsically branded Luisa's, was forced to shut its door. Nothing too unusual. Yet.

Barricades have gone up, drag queens are slapping on the greasepaint and Cover Girl cosmetics, and your BART and Muni closures / re-routings start soon. With that said, this has been somewhat of...a mess. What with the fallout over whether or not to close BART at 16th and Mission, how the closure was executed (e.g., an important elected District 9 BART Director left in the dark), and if it's the right thing to do,...

It's a battle of the press releases! Watch yourselves, or you might get cut. Did anyone know about these free shuttles tomorrow night, over at the 16th Street/Mission station? We didn't. Not even the SFMTA site had info on it this morning, which we looked over for Halloween transportation info. Hmmm. Also, while we understand that closing 16th Street station will help hinder people outside the city from coming to the Castro (yet problematic...

Well, this is interesting. Today we received a (rightfully) irritated press release from Tom Radulovich, District 9 BART Director (co-signed by Chris Daly). It seems that he wasn't involved in the decision to go ahead and close BART on Halloween night. Which? Is bizarre and inappropriate considering, well, he's an elected District 9 BART Director. The missive, which is long and available for your viewing pleasure below (and continues on after the jump), reads...