I'm with you that it would be great to encourage more public transit usage, but I bristle a bit at the idea of raising the bridge tolls again. It always feels like a form of regressive taxation to me -- it'll make things harder for poorer people who can barely cover the tolls at $4, but won't affect the wealthier folks at all.

...that burning gasoline couldn't possibly be hot enough to melt steel girders and collapse structures supported with them. You know, how every 9/11 conspiracist down the pike claims that the WTC had to be taken down by a controlled explosion because burning jet fuel alone couldn't have melted the steel support systems.

I'd like to see those same conspiracy theorists explain how a gasoline fire, which burns at a low temperature than a jet fuel fire, melted the steel beams here. Or maybe Al-Qaeda's black hand was involved HERE, TOO! "Through the looking glass, people...."

Al-Quaida, Al-Smaida. When Hayward strikes, we're toast. This weekend's accident only served to show how so unready we are for that inevitability.

And as for BART running extra, longer trains: hogwash. The Fremont-Richmond line was still running those silly 6-car trains during commute hours this morning. And it was really crowded.

Airliners are likely not going to be used again any time soon. The Homeland Security Theater does make it somewhat inconvenient, and that will induce the bad guys to look elsewhere. They're studious opportunists, and likely looking around in some degree of depth even as I write this.

On the other hand, there are plenty of low-tech short-term disruptions that would be achievable at low cost, with high disruptive yield. Freeway intersections and overpasses at or near certain critical points are one that comes immediately to mind. Electrical power substations are left unguarded almost anywhere. (They're fenced, true, but fences are a poor defense against a "satchel charge".)

Container ports are so very vulnerable. It's not even necessary to bring a ship to dockside if someone's smart. (I've talked about this here and elsewhere before, I feel no need to repeat myself as to details.) All our measures are based on the containers making landfall. That's not involved in the truly bad scenarios.

We have build the Maginot Line all over again. And the other guys are not stupid. They don't need large, spectacular acts, not at all. A well-coordinated series of well-placed disruptions will cause panic, unbelievable economic damage, and more likely than not, severe repression "in the name of Homeland Security" - which, of course, will do nothing more to protect anyone or anything.

and free tomatoes

... and drugs

I think I missed something here... How, exactly, does more public transportation keep us safer from terrorists? It seems to me the targets would just change.

Right now, blowing up a major highway interchange would have deep effects on traffic throughout a city. It takes months - or, here in Texas, years - to build an interchange. That won't change just because people are riding across those interchanges in buses instead of private cars. If we build more rail, bus stations, and all the other infrastructure associated with public transportation, and then use them as exclusively as you'd like, those then become targets. Hit a couple of train stations and you could cripple city transportation pretty effectively until people felt safe again.

Terrorist targets worldwide have, in the last few years, included subways (London, Madrid), trains (India), and buses (Iraq) - all forms of public transportation. In areas where public transportation is the rule instead of the exception, attacks don't stop people using them for long, at least in part because they don't really have any other options. But you can't claim that such attacks have no effect on transportation within a city.

There's a lot of good reasons to encourage public transportation, but safety from terrorism doesn't seem to be one of them. Maybe I missed something?

I'd like to see Joan Walsh give Rosie O'Donnell a good grilling over this fire.

Um, so to speak.

How would the national response and coverage be different?

How would have this been magnified into a Fundamental Threat To Our Civilization And Way Of Life - and not just a major inconvenience?

I think this is very instructive. The outcome of this accident and a deliberate attack is quite similar. Although the timing of the accident was very fortunate, with no loss of life and only one injury, it could have easily happened at another time of day.

Yet somehow, the loss of a freeway interchange is not, in this case, an existential threat. Just a pain in the butt.

Having lived in several major metro areas (including the Bay Area) public transportation is safer than driving because you're not whizzing along in a metal box next to thousands of other people in their own metal boxes who are a) not paying attention, b) watching movies or talking on the telephone while driving), c) suddenly changing course because they realize they missed their exit or d) all of the above. There are accidents every day on 880.

This accident was bad enough. I shudder to think what would have happened had it occurred during rush hour.

I've sometimes wondered why some terrorist didn't try what seemed to me an obvious way of screwing up American metro areas by blowing up car bombs on freeway overpasses and interchanges. Not many casualties, but lots of daily life gets screwed up. I eventually accepted the argument that Al Qaida and it ideological kin think large numbers of casualties is the point, and anything less looks like defeat. However, they're hardly the only people who might resort to terrorism, and if I could think of it, someone wanting to cause problems surely thought of it already. If they didn't, now they know destroying the right piece of freeway causes big problems. So "redundancy" seems like the right word. We don't have to consider transportation inefficient when it isn't used to maximum capacity. Suddenly, it seems like empty bus seats, half-empty rail cars, extra freeway lanes and little-used bike lanes are a security measure rather than a waste.