Golden Gate rockets precede fireworks

Press, 7 April 1987, Page 25

Golden Gate rockets precede fireworks

By

JOHN HUTCHISON,

in San Francisco

The Golden Gate bridge, built 50 years ago to unify San Francisco with the counties to the north, has become a symbol of discord. The great span, soaring high above the sea, is a vital link in a main highway stretching from

Mexico to Canada. Crossing from this city to populous neighbouring counties, it seems to lead today into a hornets’ nest.

San Franciscans recently dreamed up a monster celebration to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the bridge this year. It

was to include several days of spectacular events, culminating in a huge fireworks display, and it was to cost an estimated $4O million.

Most of the money was to be sought from private donors by an organisation called Friends of the Bridge. Their friendliness was not contagious. At last report they had raised about $1 million. Liability insurance for the frolic alone might cost $2 million.

The directors of the bridge, who had launched the plan and who are all politicians named by the several counties served by the bridge, scaled the project back to a projected $4 million. They proposed that on May 24 (a Sunday) bands would play, great spectacles (vaguely described) would take place, and that the bridge would be closed to motor traffic from 6.30 to 11.30 that morning.

It touched off the fireworks well ahead of schedule. Five hours closure of the bridge (115,000 motor vehicles cross it on an average day) would create gridlock throughout the San Francisco Bay area and create the world’s longest traffic jam, from Tijuana to Vancouver, cried the critics. Nonsense, said the promoters and a lot of fun-loving San Franciscans.

But in what some partisans called an attack of temporary sanity, the bridge board dithered again. Maybe they would close the bridge for the Great Pedestrian Caper for only two hours, around dawn.

Even that proposal is under a storm, particularly from those in the nearest town to the north, who live about three miles from San Francisco but would have to drive about 50 miles to get there, through catastrophic traffic. Short tempers have characterised discussions about the bridge almost since it was built. Taxpayers and motorists were told that the bridge would become free after a few years in which the initial toll of 25 cents per automobile was levied. That promise faded more than 30 years ago. Instead, the toll began to rise. Now it is $2 on four days a week; $4 on the other three.

Traffic chokes the bridge daily; the bridge still loses money; and the directors have argued for many years, without agreeing, on how to prevent head-on collisions by motorists and jumps from the bridge by suicides, of whom there have been about 900 since 1937, plus a rare few survivors who have made the 70-metre leap.

The present row has politicians squabbling, editors and columnists taking sides, traffic authorities upset, and various citizens denouncing each other. The fireworks on May 24 could be an anticlimax to the rockets already whistling across the Golden Gate.

Project scaled back to s4m