Talk:San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge/Archive 1

On February 20, 1931, after a great deal of lobbying, California received the go-ahead by the United States Congress to build the Bay Bridge.

Could this be clarified? What role did Congress play, exactly? Was it federally funded and the "go-ahead" was an approval to spend money? From what I can tell on the net, it looks like the design and planning was all commissioned by the state.

Eastern span replacement

Concrete and steel prices

Removed (24.251.181.145): "The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent downward turn of the economy caused the cost of building supplies like concrete and steel to skyrocket."

The above simply does not follow from the laws of economics.

Replacement (Leonard G.): "As both concrete and structural steel are now commodities within a world wide market the prices were much higher than expected due to the current building boom throughout China" -- Leonard G. 16:06, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Too many passive statements

A large part of this section should be researched a bit further and reworded. In particular, these statements should be rewritten in a more active tone: "It was clear that the eastern span must be made earthquake resistant. It had been known ..." To whom were these details clear? Passive statements espousing opinions are hard to corroborate, and they dilute the perceived quality of the article.

Ke6jjj

Emperor Norton I

The article on Emperor Norton I says that a span of this bridge was named after him, because he was an early advocate of it. Does anyone know anything about this? DuctapeDaredevil

It should say that there was a proposal before the SF Board of Supervisors to name it thusly; I think we have that described right here in this article.

Atlant 17:28, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I added the info from the Norton article to this one and rearranged things a bit. -- Samuel Wantman 00:03, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Graduate (the movie) SFOBB scene

Re: The Graduate (movie). When I saw this on its first theatrical release, it was my distinct impression that Benjamin was driving toward San Francisco (the correct direction for traffic on the upper deck, but not the way to go to Berkeley). If the flow had been reversed I'm sure I would have identified the "wrong" upper deck direction on at least on of several subsequent TV viewings. Even if we allow this, the concept of driving from Los Angeles via Highway 101 up the peninsula is also rather a stretch - the character was in a rush to get to his girlfriend and if coming up 101 (not the best choice compared to Interstate 5) would have switched to 17 North (now interstate 880) at San Jose as the most direct route. By the way, the "Ludwigs Fountain" UCB scene was actually filmed in SoCal (UCLA?), so the SF Bay Bridge clip is just a bit of scene setting. By the way, this area is my lifelong home. Leonard G. 8 July 2005 02:04 (UTC)

Image not appearing

File:SFOakBBLaticeBeamsClose.jpg

This picture shows up

File:SFOakBBLaticeBeamsClose.jpg

This picture doesn't

This hasn't appeared in my browser for months. The box with the caption appears, but not the image. Anyone have any idea why? -- Samuel Wantman 20:46, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Try clearing your browser cach. Leonard G. 15:34, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I tried that, no change. It only seems to be a problem if the image is 250px. At 300 or 200 or 220 the image appears. Very strange. -- Samuel Wantman 06:06, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

New image arrangement - horizontal group, what browser and OS do you use?

No problem with the new arrangement, but the example on this page still a problem with 250 px. I use IE with XP media edition 2005. -- Samuel Wantman 21:34, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Map location

Shouldn't the map be one of the first things encountered? It could be clipped way down to a smaller size so that it would not be intrusive, yet still informative.

Map is now part of "bridge3" taxobox - see also Golden Gate Bridge Leonard G. 15:18, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

older entries

I have changed the infobox to the bridge one used elsewhere. What do you think? Also, the map is not needed now, since the new box has map links. --Jason McHuff 17:46, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it looks just awful! There are huge white spaces when none existed previously. -- Samuel Wantman 22:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Well it is the one used by all of the other bridges. Honestly, I do see how it looks kind of jumbled and how having table boarders might be better. I just would like one standard table to be used for all bridges.

So...I changed the Template:Bridge by copying the style info from the template that was used. --Jason McHuff 00:48, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Things seem to be getting worse, not better. The layout looks bad, I don't understand why the pictures were rearranged. There are blobs of white space. Leonard G and I are not pleased. We just put a ton of work into bringing this article to featured status. I don't have the energy for a revert war, so I'm asking you to explain your changes, put them back the way they were, or fix it. -- Samuel Wantman 23:46, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

So a part of the improvement is to replace the PD Caltrans classic image with a picture of the ugly segment of the bridge? (I took this picture, BTW). The Bridge, Bridge2, and Bridge3 infoboxes are depreciated to be replaced with Infobox Bridge , so, REVERT! REVERT! REVERT! [;-) (but include intermediate edits). You might also want to see my talk with WB concerning the template - User talk:Leonard G.#Bridge (specific) infobox template - and the lengthly discussions that went into its construction. Since you are a registered user rather than an anon IP, I think it would be most appropriate for you to make this correction - in my opinion the changes are unjustifiable, but if you want to try justifying them, answer here. (Please do not take this as hostile, we need caring editors). - Leonard G. 03:47, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

P.S. All the other bridges are to be updated to the new infobox, want to help? - Leonard G. 04:03, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I went today to get an image layout fragment for another article - I just could not stand the uglyness. I thought jmchuff would have answered here by now, or done something. All is now back together as it should be, recent updates have been included. If anyone has the time this box should be used to replace any instances of bridge, bridge2, or bridge3 - note that the map is optional - if no map text info is included the row will not appear (thanks to WB for the neat css code enabling that). GGBr changed also. = Leonard G. 04:43, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Width and Vertical clearance

Why are the "Width" an "Vertical clearance" informations missing in the article? CG 15:15, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

I believe refers to the roadway width - sidewalks if present may be listed separately. I don't know how they measure railroad bridges. Vertical clearance appears to be for aircraft (?) since there is a separate entry for clearance under - perhaps user:Samuel Wantman would have better info, I think that it is his template that defines the taxobox. (Is clearance above surface, or what - these seem to be ill defied at present.)- Leonard G. 18:49, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

This information should be clarified. It is a shame to find a question mark in the beginning of a featured article. CG 19:44, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

I modified Template:Bridge to create the template used in this article. I was under the impression that Vertical clearance was for vehicles. I think Leonard is correct about the width. We should probably standardize the meanings of these things for all the bridge taxoboxes. Perhaps we can create a key and link all the terms. I was surprised that I couldn't find the information about these at Caltran's site. -- Samuel Wantman 05:53, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Better map?

It would be nifty if a better map could be posted, which showed people unfamiliar with the Bay Area where San Francisco and Oakland are located with respect to the bridge. Also, the current map doesn't clearly show Yerba Buena Island. -- Beland 04:14, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I can correct the map - by making the island out of scale, which is probably appropriate in this instance (the bridge line is much wider than the bridge would be at this scale, of course, which is why the island(s) would have to be also larger. - Leonard G. 03:52, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Photo of the whole bridge

Does anyone have a panormaic photo containing the whole bridge (both spans)? I think it would be nice to have a view of the complete bridge to get an idea of what the whole thing looks like at once. --Rc251 07:48, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a nice panoramic challenge to me. The problem is one of viewpoint. A view from the Angel Island would not be good since the eastern segment would angle sharply away from the viewer, and so the relative length would not bee obvious- better would be a viewpoint from the South, which essentially means a view from a boat on the bay, if both segments are to be in proper relative proportions. Unfortunately, I do not have access to a boat, but if anyone in the SF bay area would provide a boat (sail or power, I have enough experience to act as crew member), I would be delighted to take images and compose a panorama -Leonard G. 15:27, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Such a picture could probably be taken from the ferry that runs between Oakland and Alameda and San Francisco. 207.69.139.142 06:09, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

I have noticed a "lemonparty" picture, but thankfully the vandal doesn't know how to show images and only the text appeared.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.199.168.148 (talk) 10:07, September 14, 2005

Base isolation?

ISTR the San Francisco Chronicle discussed how the western span's deck was lifted 1.5 inches to insert base isolaters, to further protect the deck from ground motion. As this seems not to be mentioned here, maybe it should be added.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.175.225.5 (talk) 14:12, September 14, 2005