Come See Our Hideous Slab

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 12/17/4 | Mark Morford

[SmithL]

As the world swoons over France's soaring beauty of a bridge, S.F. gets slapped with an eyesore

And did you hear the one about how those gul-dang baguette-sucking antiwar French just completed work on this astounding new bridge, a soaring, airy, delicate thing erected in southern France, and it's all over the international press and the French people are justifiably proud and even the venerable Le Monde has deemed the new Millau bridge a "work of art," and the amazing pictures are being featured everywhere, for good reason?

And you look at the photos and see the breathtakingly elegant architecture (it was built by the same company that did the Eiffel Tower) and you read about the bridge's world-record height and its classy designer, renowned British architect Norman Foster, the man who also designed the Millennium Bridge in London and who believes, crazily, that "works of man should fuse with nature," and his bridge is already being hailed as an instant landmark.

The Millau. Its pillars poke the clouds and its design inspires the spirit and it will surely be a major tourist attraction for decades to come -- a fact that, of course, means little to most Americans, because most red-blooded patriots never venture past the Wal-Mart on the outskirts of their home state. But still.

And if you care at all about industrial design and the splendor of pure function and of humankind's aspirations toward anything resembling ideals of grace and simplicity and beauty, you take one look and you can only go, whoa.

And then you get to spin right around just in time to have your face slapped by Arnold Schwarzenegger, a giant slab of a B-grade actor and C-grade politician...

[ArrogantBustard]

They're either three or four lanes wide. Sometimes they'll be set up with one bridge all East (or West) bound and the other with two way traffic. Being on the two way span can be somewhat interesting.

The older span has steel guardrails, that look awfully flimsy. The newer span has Jersey Barrier guardrails ... if you have a "problem" with bridges, that would be the better choice, if a choice is available.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Pete Wilson laid out the options the mid-90's: a concret viaduct would be cheapest, but if Bay Area residents wanted to pay for it they could have a suspension or cable-stayed bridge. Bay Area politicians went for the suspension bridge, knowing it would cost more (personally, I thought the cable-stayed bridge looked a lot cooler and more modern). There was a huge fight over where to make the bridge attach to Yerba Buena island, because it potentially required the demolition of an opulent house that Willie Brown wanted to use as a "mayor's mansion". That argument delayed comencement of construction for quite a while, adding to the cost increase.

Now, in the best Bay Area tradition of "what's yours is mine", Don Perata (Democrat, gun-grabber extraordinaire) wants the suspension bridge and to make the whole state pay for it instead of the commuters who use it. Something about the Bay Area being such a special place that other Californians should be honored to help make it beautiful.

There's going to be another earthquake, and people are going to die on the old Bay Bridge. And it won't be the fault of any Democrat, you can be sure.

[Vic3O3]

Gee. I sorta figured Markie would LIKE something that would tighten his colon...rotfl!

[Charles Martel]

ROTFL, indeed. :^)

[presidio9]

Just wondering. Do British engineers working in Gay Paris need to factor earthquakes into their plans?