Sometimes I REALLY hate traffic
Man, sometimes living on the wrong side of the MD Bay Bridge can be hell:
Tanker crashes into toll plaza at Bay Bridge, snarling traffic
Metro Digest
Originally published April 1, 2006
A tanker carrying propane crashed into the Bay Bridge toll plaza late yesterday afternoon, causing backups for several miles and injuring the driver.
The tanker was eastbound on U.S. 50 about 4:30 p.m. when it struck a pickup truck and another vehicle before rolling into an E-ZPass lane of the toll plaza.
Cpl. Pamela Thorne, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, said five vehicles were involved. The driver of the tanker was flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center. His identity and condition were not released.
The collision appeared to have lifted a toll booth off its foundation, Thorne said. The booth attendant was taken to an area hospital and released yesterday evening, she said.
Late yesterday evening, crews were burning off the approximately 700 gallons of propane from the tanker before towing it away. Three of the 11 lanes of the toll plaza remained open, Thorne said.
[Tyrone Richardson]
Ok, I haven't been able to find any pictures that do this disaster justice, but there's one picture here:
http://www.capitalonline.com/cgi-bin...6/04_01-19/TOP
I had a really hard time getting across the bridge on Thursday night, and I think it had something to do with roadwork. See, Meredith lives 12 miles away from me, just on the other side of the bridge (she lives next to the Cape St. Claire 7-11) so it's usually a 14 or so minute drive. Well, I left her house after Smallville at 9pm, and we were on the road by 9:05. Unfortunately, we got stuck in bridge traffic until 11 friggin 30!
Well, Friday was completely beautiful outside, so we went out for awhile to her old hometown of North Beach, and when it got a little chilly, we headed home. But, when we got close to the Bay Bridge around 5:30 it was clear that traffic was once again at a standstill. Not wanting to go through that 2 days in a row, and chalking it all up to good weather and weekend traffic we decided to go see a movie and wait it out. So, we saw Slither (her choice! And goddamn was that movie gross) and afterward, headed for home. Well, at that point it was around 7:30 and traffic was actually WORSE. So, we went back and killed time at a bookstore until around 10:30 (I can sit in a bookstore ALL DAY reading stuff).
Needless to say, it was still backed up. So we drove all the way up past the antique mall, and finally saw what the problem was. From our perspective it looked like the bridge was on fire! We accidentally went a little too far and ended up at the police station, so I ran in and asked what was up and they told us everything was fine and to just cross the bridge. Luckily, the exit near the police station was almost completely past the heavy traffic so we didn't have to wait very long, but let me tell you, it was not a good feeling to cross the bridge with a BURNING TANKER TRUCK 3 lanes over.
The End.
