Caltrans took advantage of that closure to add more prominent lane markers that warn motorists when they’re starting to drift out of their lanes, Caltrans spokesman BART Ney said. Crews also applied an anti-skid coating on the metal joint plates there.

Caltrans said they expect the accidents to decline as motorists get more familiar with the S-curve and the need to slow down there. The curve is located on Interstate 80 just east of Yerba Buena Island in part of a new detour that will be in place until the new east span of the Bay Bridge is opened in 2013.

Click here for more bridge information from Caltrans.

“Though data suggest that cycling fatalities have actually fallen nationwide,” reads the LA Times story, “one new study suggests that the injuries cyclists suffer in traffic accidents are becoming more severe.”

In a related stories, advice is given about what motorists can do to minimize the risk of hitting bicyclists, and what bicyclists can do to protecting themselves from being struck.

Here’s one tip for drivers,  ”Give them (bicyclists) space: Recognize that bicycles have a right to the road and may legally take the full lane. Allow at least 3 feet of space while passing.”

Here’s a highlight for cyclists,” Situation: A motorist traveling in the opposite direction turns left directly into your path.

Strategy: Slow down as you approach an intersection, and try to make eye contact with drivers who might turn into your path. Try to anticipate their actions and be ready to take evasive maneuvers. If the car turns into your path, turn with them, in the same direction.”

For any interested cyclists, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition lists classes on bicycle safety , including ones in Fremont Nov. 10 and Berkeley Nov. 14 and 15.
 

This is one beat up freeway. I drive it regularly and try to steer around potholes and dips in the road while staying within my lane. I’m not alone. Bus drivers complain to Caltrans they also try to maneuver around road flaws on the I-680 from Alamo through San Ramon  

In the repairs today, crews will pour asphalt into a depression in the pavement at a point near where the freeway crosses over Livorna Road, Caltrans said.

I tried last night on my way home to identify which hole or slump was the worst culprit and the likeliest to be the repair site today. I failed to locate the bad spot because there are so many flaws in the road in that area, including one where cars do a thunk as they pass over uneven pavement.

So I’m glad Caltrans is fixing a bad spot in the highway, but I’m looking forward to the more comprehensive freeway rehab next year.

Members of the Bay Area Toll Authority are wrestling with how to revamp tolls to do two new things: collecting tolls from car pools during rush hour periods on all seven bridges, and structuring Bay Bridge tolls so drivers pay more during peak periods, and less during in off-peak times.

The affected toll bridges are all in the region except the Golden Gate.

The proposal increase would be would increase from $4 to $5 per car except on the Bay Bridge, where the proposal gets more complicated because of the plan to use congestion pricing to encourage more people to avoid the bridge during the rush hour.

Here’s the details on the three hearings:

- 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 4 at Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, Lawrence D. Dahms Auditorium, (across from the Lake Merritt BART Station) 101 Eighth St., Oakland

- 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17 at San Mateo City Hall City Council Chambers, 330 West 20th Ave., San Mateo

- 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 3 at Concord Senior Center, Wisteria Room (in John F. Baldwin Park) 2727 Parkside Circle, Concord.

The main reason to raise bridge tolls is the $750 million needed to do seismic retrofits on the Dumbarton and Antioch Bridges, Toll Authority administrators say.

Click on BATA report about toll increase to view the agency’s case for higher tolls   

Written comments will be accepted until Dec. 21 at BATA Public Information Office, 101 Eighth Street, Oakland, CA, 94607-4700; or the comments can be sent via e-mail to tolls@mtc.ca.gov.

The seven bridges proposed for the increase are: Bay, Richmond-San Rafael, Carquinez, Benicia-Martinez, Antioch, San Mateo and Dumbarton.

Proposed options to make those major changes in July were unveiled Monday by the Bay Area Toll Authority, which plans to hold hearings in November. I’m betting both changes are going to come under fire from some angry drivers.  Members of the Toll Authority’s oversight committee made it pretty clear Monday that they broadly support the changes even if the officials want to study and modify some details of the changes. Check out a discussion on by clicking here on the BATA staff report.

Critics are likely to condemn the proposals as heavy-handed social engineering. Let’s take up car pools, first. Some car pool users will say goverment will be shooting itself in the foot by abolishing the free ride for car pools because – after all - squeezing more people into fewer cars reduces congestion and pollution.

In reply, Toll Authority staffers say don’t know of anywhere else in the nation where car pools get a completely free ride on toll bridges. New York and New Jersey give discounts, but not free rides to car pools.

Steve Heminger, the Toll Authority executive director, says he believes the biggest incentive to travel by car pool across the Bay Bridge is the time savings from being able to zip through the toll gates in the car pool lanes.

Heminger also contends that car pools should start paying some rush hour toll because money from a toll increase will go mostly toward $750 million in seismic retrofits planned on the Antioch and Dumbarton bridges, the last two toll bridges in the region to be upgraded for earthquake protection. Car pool users benefit from safety improvements aimed at keeping them alive and keeping their bridges standing, he says.

The proposal for higher fares during rush hour periods on the Bay Bridge also is going to be a hot button issue, too. Some will argue that charging a $6 toll in rush hour and $4 at other times is government forcing people when to travel, or penalizing people whose jobs require them to be at work early in the morning.

Toll Authority members say congestion pricing is the most effective way to steer people to change driving times or switch to public transit, reducing freeway congestion and global warming gases. Getting 15 or 20 percent of the Bay Bridge morning commuters to shift their commute times could make a huge difference in smoothing traffic flows, Toll Authority administrators say.

Also, a peak time surcharge on tolls could spur some employers to let workers start their day earlier or later, officials said. 

The public will get several chances to sound off on toll increase proposals, starting with the next Toll Authority oversight committee meeting 9:30 a.m. Nov. 4 at the Metrocenter in Oakland.

Share you thoughts below on what the authority should do about tolls. 

The Bay Area Toll Authority Overnight Committee meets at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday at the MetroCenter, 101 Eighth Street, Oakland to consider a report on options for a toll increase.

One sticky issue is whether to start making car pools pay tolls to cross the Bay Bridge during peak commute hours. The free ride may be over.

Toll Authority administrators say they need a toll increase to pay for a seismic retrofit on the Dumbarton and Antioch bridges, to cover reduced revenues from fewer drivers crossing the bridges, and to absorb the higher cost of credit to pay for bridge operations and retrofits.

Antioch and Dumbarton bridges – the newest of the seven state bridges – initially got a clean bill of health after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. But now Caltrans has concluded the two bridges need to be made stronger.

The toll increase would apply to the Bay Bridge, Dumbarton, Antioch, Richmond-San Rafael, Benicia-Martinez, Carquinez and San Mateo.

State legislation adding the Dumbarton and Antioch bridges to the State Toll Bridge Seismic Retrofit Program was signed into law Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over the weekend. The bill, authored by Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, makes it easier for the Toll Authority to upgrade the two bridges to withstand earthquakes, toll authority staffers said.   

So what are the best actions for drivers and lawmakers to take to minimize the carnage from use of cell phone calls, texts and tweets on the highways?   A research firm reported that one in 10 Twitter users admits they have tweeted while they were behind the wheel. And 29 percent of the interviewees said they’ve used Twitter from a car at some point in the past. Yikes.

And a separate insurance company study found that one in five cell phone users sent text messages while driving.

Yikes.  That’s a scary – considering a driver must look away from the road and tap out messages while he’s zooming down the road.

Several states  – including California  - have banned texting while driving, but most states have not.

The Obama administration is steping into the debate over electronic devices by considering whether to adopt a rule banning truck and bus drivers from talking on the cell phone while driving. Such a ban was recommended in 2004 by the National Safety Transportation Board after a case which a bus driver carrying students to Washington D.C. become so engrossed in a cell phone conversation that he failed to notice warning signs that an upcoming bridge was 2 feet lower than his vehicle height.

Eleven people were injured when the bus slammed into the underside of the bridge, peelng off the top of the bus like a can opener. 

At least, no one was killed then. In 2003, the The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis estimated that 2,300 people a year die in crashes related to cell phone use.

Congress is trying to get into the act. Legislation in the Senate would cut federal transportation money to states unless they banned texting while driving.

California requires that drivers making cell phone calls must use hands-free devices. You don’t have to look far to see violators, though.

As for me personally, I have found that a speaker attached to a car visor works best for me as a hands-free device. The visor-mounted device costs more than $100, but it’s hard to lose – unlike the ear piece sound devices.    

The postponement was sought by bidders who wanted more time to study addendums to the contract specifications. Caltrans figured the extra 18 days would give contractors more time to understand the details of the big digging job and possibly submit lower bids, according to a spokesman for the agency.

And lower bids would be a bargain for taxpayers – both state and Contra Costa County taxpayers who are helping fund the estimated $435 million project.

While the rainy season will be upon us soon as the weekend storm showed, Caltrans officials say much of this project won’t be affected by rain because the work will be underground drilling the extra tunnel between Orinda and Oakland.

Tell us about your advance plans and then tell us how it actually turns out over the long weekend. With our common dependence on bridges in the Bay Area, it’s a big deal – practically and psychologically - when our busiest bridge has a 300-foot-long  gap sliced open and a giant filling rolled in to replace it and create a new bridge detour.   

Many of us may hunker down and stay local without crossing a bridge or without crossing from the west to east sides of the Bay. Then again, you may need to get across the Bay for work Friday, or for events like the UC Berkeley home football opener Saturday or the Scottish Games in Pleasanton Saturday and Sunday – both events that draw tens of thousands of people from far and wide. (Remember BART as an option.)

As for me, I will doing some work shifts from Caltrans temporary media village on Yerba Buena Island where reporters and photographers can the work above. Looks like the Road Queen and I both will need to catch a ride to the island from a special water taxi service set up for contractors, government officials, and media to get from Oakland to the island. Caltans has advised us: Bring a blanket because it’s likely to get cold out there at night.

Let us know how it goes.  

Go to to the Caltrans Web site - baybridgeinfo.org - for tips on getting tweets about progress on the construction project triggering the need to close the bridge for four days.

We all know the bridge will close 8 p.m. Thursday. The big question is: Will it reopen by 5 a.m Tuesday as planned? Will it reopen earlier, as is possible? Or will it reopen later, an unlikely but possible outcome that would cause traffic chaos on freeways after the long holiday ends.  

Tweet on.

For those who want to check Web sites to get updates on the bridge project, visit baybridgeinfo.org and the old reliable 511.org. They also wil post announcements about the bridge reopening