I-10 closure in California prompts state of emergency

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/i-10-closure-california-state-of-emergency-18486449.php

by akeck • 3 years ago

43 47 3 years ago

Native Californian, and Angelino here. It took me a minute to realize all the headlines about I-10 meant THE 10 freeway.

mjevans2• 3 years ago

It's a lot catchier to say I-5 or I-95 than it is I-10...

However dropping the classification from a number is equally problematic be it the timezone (E.G. EST / New York) or a freeway.

Absent even any other context, MOST Americans would probably at least consider a highway / freeway / other major vehicle route in their head hearing I-(number).

bobthepanda• 3 years ago

“The X” in New York would most likely be a train, though no highway numbers in New York go quite as low as the trains.

Also, you can’t authoritatively say “the X” because of the multistate nature of the metropolitan area, where talking about “Route 17” may refer to either NY 17 or NJ 17.

RhysU• 3 years ago

This is my favorite Californiaism, especially whenever I drive "the 101".

In Pennsylvania one drives "30" or "22", never with "the" and seldom even prefixing "route" or "US".

Texas just says "35".

miked85• 3 years ago

I don't think it is unique to CA, I've never heard it any other way in other parts of the southwest.

idontwantthis2• 3 years ago

And in St. Louis they call I-64 “fardy”.

pilingual• 3 years ago

It's interesting that it depends on whether you are in Southern or Northern California[0]. No one says "the 280" or "the 92" or "the 85." But I have heard "the 101" frequently in Norcal.

[0] https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/the-5-the-101-the-405...

theGnuMe• 3 years ago

A select few roads get the ‘the’ treatment. Apparently this is a historical thing when the freeways were named after their destinations. The Santa Monica freeway etc…

Northern California doesn’t use the “the” for example.

ransom1538• 3 years ago

Sacramento has I-80 and business 80. Good luck.

testfoobar• 3 years ago

It is "The 101" in SoCal - anything else would be odd. Similarly, it is "101" in NorCal - anything else would be odd.

Native Californians code switch based on location.

Some Socal history:

How Los Angeles got in the habit of putting ‘the’ in front of every freeway name

https://la.curbed.com/2017/9/6/16264074/socal-los-angeles-th...

lamroger• 3 years ago

Philly replaced a burnt bridge pretty quickly. Not sure how different the sizes are but hoping for a speedy fix.

https://www.businessinsider.com/philadelphia-turns-heads-spe...

johncalvinyoung• 3 years ago

Philadelphia was just a single span long, albeit two bridges involved, for N/Sbound. I'm not personally familiar with either location, but between Google Maps and the article, this is looking like a full elevated viaduct, and more than a single deck span. On the face of it, looks like a MUCH more complex problem to replace than Philly's.

ls612• 3 years ago

When the 35W bridge over the Mississippi collapsed in 2007 it took a year and change to replace it and they paid a premium to make it happen that fast. I don't recall there being any state of emergency declared in the twin cities though.

zymhan• 3 years ago

It took 43 days in Atlanta for I-85, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_85_bridge_collapse?...

Also, in Philly, they filled (philled) in the area under the bridge, which may not be possible for I-10 here.

jauntywundrkind• 3 years ago

They rebuilt the highway but instead of making it a bridge/overpass, they just filled in underneath the highway (with glass-aggregate filler) for now.

There are longer term plans to turn it back into an overpass.

jedberg2• 3 years ago

When the Northridge quake hit in 1994 and took out a section of I-10 (it literally fell and crumbled), they had it rebuilt in 31 days, using the state of emergency bureaucratic "fast pass".

I have a feeling this will be reopened by Thanksgiving.

greenburger• 3 years ago

Another similar repair occurred in 2007 when a truck fire damaged I-880 and I-580 one was repaired in a week and the other 26 days[0].

[0] https://2013.infrastructurereportcard.org/2009/case-study/ma...

jedberg2• 3 years ago

Yes! I remember that one too. The contractor had it choreographed down to almost the minute so that prep work for a piece would finish minutes before that piece arrived.

Needless to say, California takes their freeway repair seriously when it is a critical artery through a major metro.

riku_iki• 3 years ago

good test to see if system became more corrupt and disfunctional since then.

whartung• 3 years ago

Story I heard for that job was the city offered a $1M early completion bonus. The contractor that won the bid was confident they would beat the deadline and they underbid everyone by the $1M and got the job.

And, yes, they beat the deadline.

The city coped rather well with that whole situation.

Northridge quake was another testament to all of the work that had been put into earthquake safety and building codes over the years.

fnordpiglet• 3 years ago

Ok - sucks about the closed interstate.

But that robot fire fighter in the lead photo - wow that’s awesome!

kermatt• 3 years ago

Seems like storage of flammable materials under busy freeways is not always a great idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_85_bridge_collapse

VyseofArcadia• 3 years ago

I was in Atlanta for a job interview the morning after the collapse.

Boy if you think traffic is bad there normally...

lgleason• 3 years ago

You would think that after what happened in Atlanta with 85 a few years ago, which was ironically storage owned by the state where a homeless person set some stuff on fire, they would have known better than to allow any storage under a bridge like this, especially private. Just from a national security standpoint, taking out a few bridges like this could cause havoc.

They did rush the construction to get it back open but it was crazy for a while. Another great reason to support remote work :).

trilbyglens• 3 years ago

Or public transportation

dimmu_bourgeois• 3 years ago

People are advised to take public transit if traveling in and around downtown Los Angeles

I know HN asks that we post thoughtful comments, but the only thing that comes to mind when I read this sentence is "lmfao"

oneplane• 3 years ago

I don't know the context of why that is funny, but I believe having multiple viable modes of transportation is something densely populated areas should always have. Doing everything car-centric is just bad, plain and simple.

If public transit in the mentioned area is badly implemented, then yes, that is funny.

wwalexander• 3 years ago

The buses work great. Have you ever taken them?

scruple• 3 years ago

My neighbor commutes on public transit from south OC to DTLA 5 days a week and has since they moved in back in 2016. He was driving during the pandemic because the roads were empty. I've never heard him complain about it. He leaves around 10am and gets home around 7pm.

bryogenic• 3 years ago

Excellent video on the pain points and tradeoffs related to freeway bridge designs and fire safety.

Practical Engineering: Why fires destroy bridges

Philadelphia I-95 Bridge Collapse Explained

https://youtu.be/iKNw1mnA5M0

prpl• 3 years ago

There’s some large encampments under bart in East Oakland, in addition to other overpasses, underpasses, and other raised concrete infrastructure.

I’m surprised more didn’t happen with the 580 (880?) overpass when there was a big fire near west oakland a few years ago, but they did finally take that as an opportunity to clean some things up. It really is irresponsible to let these things slide

WirelessGigabit• 3 years ago

Less fuel to burn I would say. Here there were a LOT of pallets, nice and dry.

radar1310• 3 years ago

How ridiculous that this even happened. It happened in Atlanta 3 years ago. Don’t we learn from huge mistakes like this anymore? The circumstances are exactly the same. Look it up. It’s really stupid that this was allowed to happen again.

I-10 closure in California prompts state of emergency

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