Runnin' the DC Beltway

From Madison, NJ to Glen Allen, VA clocks in at 311 miles. With a little luck and a decent radar detector one should be able to get door-to-door in four hours.

HAH! In five years of trying, I've made that bogey just once; it was so euphoric I felt like spraying the family with champagne!

The first 200 miles fool you. You rip along down the NJT, across the Delaware Memorial Bridge and down into one of the Baltimore tunnels with ease, but the final 100 miles are KILLER.
Anything can happen and often does. Accidents, traffic delays, bumper-to-bumper through inexplicable 'construction' sites (where no one seems to be constructing anything).
Here is the latest beauty... just before the DC drawbridge, a wall-to-wall accident that completely shut down I95! Without explanation or any detour help, the men in blue just shovelled everybody back onto I95 North! It was 'Yankee Go Home' time!
The little MINI and I got around that with only a 30-minute delay thanks to the VZ Navigator app, but another accident 30 miles downwind and some truck-traffic slowdowns made this voyage log in at a mind-altering 7 hours and 41 minutes! Good thing I love my kids!

In July of 1969, Rocky Marciano participated in the filming of the fantasy, The Superfight: Marciano vs. Ali. The two boxers were filmed sparring, then the film was edited to match a computer simulation of a hypothetical fight between them, each in their prime. The bout was aired on Tuesday, January 20, 1970. Marciano won by KO in 13.


On August 31, 1969,the eve of his 46th birthday, Marciano was a passenger in a small private plane, a Cessna 172 headed to Des Moines, Iowa. It was night, and bad weather set in. The pilot, who was not certified to fly in such dangerous conditions, tried to set the plane down at a small airfield outside Newton, Iowa, but hit a tree two miles short of the runway. The plane was out of gas as well. Rocky, the young pilot, and another passenger (alleged Iowa mob boss Louis Fratto's son) were killed on impact. He is buried in a crypt at Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His wife, who died five years after him at the age of 46, is entombed next to him. His father died in March 1973, his mother died in early January 1986

Drivin' the Driscoll

The world's widest bridge - 15 travel lanes plus six shoulder lanes - is now the Driscoll Bridge carrying the Garden State Parkway over the shipping channel of the Raritan River in Perth Amboy NJ, 42km (26mi) southwest of Central Park in Manhattan. The bridge is located at the transition point between the beach resorts and developing areas of the Jersey Shore and the established suburbs and industrial areas of northern New Jersey.

Wider than the GWB and Verrazano
Until Driscoll, the world's widest - as measured by number of lanes - was the George Washington Bridge operated by the PANYNJ with 14 lanes. The next widest in the US is the Tribrough Authority's Verrazano Narrows Bridge of 12 travel lanes, no shoulder lanes. Third is the Bay Bridge in San Francisco of ten lanes. All these are double decked (the east span of the Bay bridge is side by side) and all are toll financed. The new Wilson Bridge presently under construction to carry the Capital Beltway over the Potomac River near Alexandria VA will be 12 travel lanes plus eight shoulder lanes - financed with taxes, thanks to the special indulgence of the DC area by Uncle Sam.

Dimensions
The Garden State Parkway's $220m project widens the Driscoll Bridge from 12 to 15 lanes and adds six shoulder lanes. All lanes are 11 feet in width. 230k veh/day presently use the bridge but this is expected to surpass 300k in the future as the Jersey Shore continues to develop. Northbound has eight travel lanes, one more than southbound because of the major exits just north of the bridge to I-287 and the Turnpike proper. The eight lanes northbound are organized into two roadways (or carriageways) of four travel lanes each and shoulder lanes each side, occupying all of the existing bridge.

The eastern roadway northbound will serve four interchanges within 10km (6mi) while the other or central roadway northbound will serve traffic continuing on the Parkway beyond the interchanges. Southbound, where interchanges beyond the bridge are smaller and further off, there is a single seven lane roadway with shoulder lanes each side.

The new span has a deck 28.3m (93ft) wide and 1,335m (4379ft) long of 27 steel plate girder spans rising to provide a navigation channel clearance under of 41m (135ft). The navigation span is 76m (250ft) long.

The existing bridge was itself built in two stages - the first of 18.3m (60ft) opened with the Parkway in 1955 and was striped for 2x2 lanes plus shoulders. In 1957 traffic caused it to be restriped to 2x3 lanes of 3m (10ft) each, no shoulder at all. In 1972 a second similar span was built alongside to bring the bridge deck to 39.6m (130ft) and each side was restriped to 5 lanes with righthand shoulder on each. In the early 1980s the shoulders were eliminated and the bridge made 6 lanes each direction, no shoulder.

Driscoll - New Jersey's great builder
The Driscoll Bridge is named after Alfred E Driscoll (1902-1975), the remarkable Jersey governor who used tolling to finance construction of almost the full length of both the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike - 454km (282mi) of "superhighway" as they called it then - within two terms of office half a century ago (1947-54). Driscoll was an urban planner, and a Republican state senator before running for office championing the tollroads.

Finally! Canadians talk about their health care

After listening to months of right-wing idiotic exaggerations and outright lies about their health care system, Canadians answer back!




Here's a glimpse of Canada, 'The Evil Empire', as their school children see it: Cut and paste the URL below into your address bar.

https://thefourcornersclassroom.wikispaces.com/Group+27+-+Pre-Project