All Pedestrians to Be Banned from the Golden Gate Bridge
NEWS ALERT - A favorite activity for visitors to San Francisco, walking or biking across the Golden Gate Bridge, is about to become a thing of the past. No longer will it be possible for pedestrians to wander across the iconic landmark.
Government officials were reluctant to comment but after days of pestering phone calls every 20 minutes around the clock, we got a few words. "Last year we had someone blown right off the bridge. That's when we started thinking about small changes we could make to increase public safety. "
The first change was a ban on unicycles earlier this year. The ban resulted in a 300% decrease in unicycle-related accidents. Given the success of the initiative, officials are now looking to ban all pedestrian and cyclist traffic across the bridge.
Some speculate the ban is related to the recent incident in which several tourists got extremely drunk and attempted to bike across the bridge at peak traffic hour. A local cyclist, who prefers to be referred to only by his first name, Bobert, has this to say:
"I will never forget that day. In fact, I haven't been able to bike across the bridge since. It was crazy. There were bicycles all over the ground, wheels spinning in the air."
At that point Bobert's eyes welled up and he was unable to continue with his story. Journalist reports vary wildly, but anywhere between one and four dozen injured people were rushed to the emergency room on that fateful morning.
Though safety measures have been put into place, including breathalyzer tests and bridge bans for repeat offenders, officials still feel these measures are not enough.
But the public is not in agreement. Commuters who bike across the bridge every morning are outraged. Multiple protests coordinated by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are planned over the coming weeks.
And locals are not the only ones affected. A recent survey, conducted by San Francisco based travel site Tripping.com, a metasearch platform for vacation rentals, showed 99.88% of people planning a trip to San Francisco were "moderately to very, very interested" in walking or biking across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Despite widespread lack of support, the ban is expected to go into effect this summer. Starting June 1st, all cyclists and pedestrians will officially be banned from the Golden Gate Bridge.
If you were planning a trip to San Francisco this year, now's the time to go! And if you're looking for a great place to stay in San Francisco, you can find it on Tripping. ;)
And for the latest bridge updates, visit the official Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District website.
P.S. This was concocted by our blog editor, Anis Salvesen, and published on April 1st as part of an April Fool's post on our Facebook page.
Photo credits: photo 1; photo 2