The Merc-News reports an eleven year old girl perished after a rollover crash on I-280 near Page Mill Road. The driver lost control and flipped her Ford F-150 pickup truck several times. Three passengers, including the girl, were ejected from the truck.
If you read the Highway Patrol dispatch log (read bottom to top), you’ll see this noontime crash really backed things up for other travelers. While first responders tried to work the scene of this bloody wreck, CHP and local police had to manage dozens of motorists who drove the wrong way on freeway access ramps to get around the crash site. One of the people trapped in this mess was an individual on his way to Stanford Hospital because of liver failure.
Transit Strike
Although I’ve scheduled this post for Monday morning, I’m typing this Sunday night shortly after union representatives walked out of their contract negotiations with BART management in Oakland, CA. At this point, it looks like the Monday morning commute should be interesting for several hundred thousand commuters in the East Bay and San Francisco as BART workers strike for the first time since 1997. Commuters likely already have seen the pleas for ride-sharing from regional transportation planners, and Caltrans will limit certain East Bay HOV lanes to HOV 3+ (transit, motorcycles, commercial vehicles, and private vehicles with at least 3 passengers only), which CHP says they will enforce. Although there’s a lot of uncertainty about AC Transit (will they strike or not?), the ferry operators are stepping up their game by more than doubling their capacity between the East Bay and San Francisco destinations.
Rumors are afoot also of a group of people who plan to mob the Bay Bridge with bikes, although bikes are prohibited from the highway link between Oakland and San Francisco. If you want to see the excitement, watch the toll plaza at 9 AM. Rememer, though, that police presence will be heavy at the toll plaza, and Caltrans is opening the highway shoulders for HOV and bus traffic, with special police attention paid to Grand Avenue.
What are some of the more creative solutions you’ve heard of to get through the BART strike?
You’ve heard by now that California’s excise tax for gasoline increased 3.5 cents overnight, giving the Golden State the highest gas tax in the nation. Has anybody noticed yet that the price of gas at the pump didn’t actually go up 3.5 cents? A gold star to the first person who can explain why that is
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