Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017)

Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by WalterBright on Monday September 07, 2020 @05:54PM (#24403273)

In Seattle, the old I90 floating bridge across Lake Washington had a "bulge" where a section of the roadway could be pushed into the bulge to make room for boat passage. When the section was retracted, the highway abruptly ended, and a barrier was put up.

The Bulge was infamous for traffic accidents where you suddenly had to swerve right then left then right at highway speed, with narrow lanes lined with concrete walls. This was a challenge for my old car with its loosey goosey suspension. I remember news radio at the time would report on another "flamer" at The Bulge.

Time moves on, and it was time to replace the bridge with a modern, safe one. The construction crew was astonished to find a car at the bottom where the highway abruptly ended when the bridge was retracted. In it was a woman who had been missing for 20 or 30 years. It was a famous case when she went missing, and people searched everywhere for her, including forests where psychics claimed she was.

Apparently, she was simply driving one night, didn't realize that the bridge was out, drove through the barrier into the water and nobody noticed.

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by chrisacky on Monday September 07, 2020 @06:50PM (#24403612)

I was curious too and found this Reddit write-up:

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/6zr2d6...

Picture of the bridge. (I'm EU so couldn't view the previous link)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/5ticw5/til_a_dange...

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by AgentME on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @05:01AM (#24406548)

Here's a picture from that thread showing how it works and what it's like when it lets boats through: https://i.imgur.com/nIeXbXt.png. I skimmed a bunch of articles about the bridge to figure out how the bulge possibly worked to let boats through, and none were as useful as this diagram.

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by nullsense on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @08:46AM (#24407834)

Ah that's a gem.

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by Balgair on Monday September 07, 2020 @08:32PM (#24404119)

Oh now that is a very stupid design. Thanks for the picture!

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by dijit on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @02:09AM (#24405625)

Yet, it was replicated in Copenhagen (albeit for a bicycle path).

https://www.archdaily.com/868904/copenhagens-latest-piece-of...

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by hebrox on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @02:31AM (#24405729)

I saw "The Unholy Trinity of Bridge Stupidity in Copenhagen" recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McvZ68qlho4 and was shocked that this thing actually exists.

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by gallego2007 on Monday September 07, 2020 @06:21PM (#24403436)

I had to look this up just to see what this 'right-left' swerve looked like on a bridge... found the following article [1] (from an insurance company no less!) with a picture and a link to an old news article [2] about the missing teen driver.

[1] https://pemco.com/blog/closed-drawspan-evokes-memories-of-th...

[2] https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=860&dat=19810915&id=z...

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by kwillets on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @12:45PM (#24410169)

The SF Bay Bridge added a similar feature during the expensive replacement of the Eastern span, and despite every precaution and a very gradual turn, drivers routinely crashed, and the area was covered with skid marks. One truck went completely over the rail. Apparently a large percentage of drivers go into a state of hypnosis on bridges.

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[dead]

Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by philiplu on Monday September 07, 2020 @10:13PM (#24404661)

I assume you’re referring to the night they left the plug out? Or did something else happen during the Inaugaral Day windstorm in 1993?

For non-locals: Seattle is separated from the Eastside, the suburbs to the East, by Lake Washington. That lake is deep enough that the two bridges crossing it float on giant pontoons. In the early 90s, they were replacing the old Interstate 90 bridge, and doing some work on the old span in preparation. Someone decided that waste water from the process could be safely stored in those pontoons, so they removed the watertight caps. There was a big storm in late November 1990 which flooded the pontoons and sank the bridge. IIRC, that also damaged the cable supports for the replacement bridge, closing it down for a while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_V._Murrow_Memorial_Bridg...

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @12:03AM (#24405088)

I am, and I appreciate the correction to my dates. I really have it etched in my mind that the bridge sinking (you could see it from my home at the time, in Leschi) was tightly coupled to election stuff.

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by PaulDavisThe1st on Monday September 07, 2020 @10:02PM (#24404609)

Does anyone downvoting this remember what happened to the replacement the night before Bill Clinton was inaugurated?

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by iso947 on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @05:19AM (#24406650)

Have any other Clintons been inaugurated?

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Re:Desolate English path has killed more than 100 people (2017) by globular-toast on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @06:07AM (#24406910)

> you suddenly had to swerve right then left then right at highway speed

Surely you didn't "have to". Didn't it occur to anyone that slowing down might make it less dangerous?

Here's some pictures to help understand what this thing was:

Aerial: https://i.redd.it/cyol33goebfy.jpg Street view: https://imgur.com/a/mDH0H Artist's impression of operation: https://i.imgur.com/nIeXbXt.png

(Found in the reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/5ticw5/til_a_dange...)

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