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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "+//ISBN 0-9673008-1-9//DTD OEB 1.0 Document//EN"
+  "http://openebook.org/dtds/oeb-1.0/oebdoc1.dtd">
+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/x-oeb1-document; charset=utf-8" />
+<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/x-oeb1-css" href="DrBillBio.css" />
+<title>Bill Wattenburg’s Background: Golden Gate Bridge Traffic Barrier</title>
+</head>
+
+<body>
+
+<h1>Golden Gate Bridge Traffic Barrier</h1>
+
+<h2>(1982–1984)</h2>
+
+<p>Another series of newspaper articles in 1982–1984 describe how Wattenburg did the
+“<a href="BART.html">BART story</a>” again on the over-confident Golden Gate Bridge
+engineers who insisted that a moveable
+anti-collision barrier could not be designed that would fit between the traffic lanes on the bridge
+and meet the requirement that it be moved twice each day to allow reallocation of the lanes for
+rush hour flow. The Bridge’s private engineering firm was being paid over a million dollars a
+year to advise the bridge district. Numerous fatal head-on collisions had made this a very
+controversial subject. A frustrated bridge director called on Wattenburg to find a solution. A few
+weeks later he came up with a design that stunned the confident engineers—and evidently
+fascinated the press and the public because it was so simple.</p>
+
+<p>His solution was to use sections of large-diameter (24″) round steel pipe which are strung together
+on a strong steel cable like a spaghetti necklace. He later proved that the steel pipe is as strong as
+conventional concrete lane dividers. The steel pipe can be rolled from lane to lane quite easily to
+change traffic flow patterns. Once Wattenburg had proved that the problem could be solved by at
+least one inexpensive scheme, two other companies quickly came forth with alternate designs of
+their own. Internal politics over where and how money should be spent on bridge improvements
+has delayed installation of any of these anti-collision barriers to date. However, other bridges
+around the world have installed movable traffic barriers which are renditions of Wattenburg’s
+patented design that he offered to give the Golden Gate Bridge District free-of-charge.</p>
+
+<p>The head of one embarrassed engineering firm working for the bridge district attacked
+Wattenburg’s credentials to be doing work for the district without having a license as a
+professional engineer (he evidently assumed that Wattenburg must be getting paid). Wattenburg’s
+terse response to the press was: “I don’t take public money for exposing high-priced fools who
+pretend to be competent engineers.”</p>
+
+<p>Bill Wattenburg and his son, Eric, who was an engineering student at California State
+University, Chico, were issued a patent on their movable pipe barrier design in 1987. His son
+had designed the mechanism that automatically rolls the pipe barrier from lane to lane while
+keeping it tied down securely to the bridge deck or roadway at all times. Wattenburg said that he
+was about to give up on the pipe barrier idea because he hadn’t solved this problem. Eric picked
+up the problem one weekend and found a clever solution that made the whole scheme practical.
+Eric built a fully operational scale model that he demonstrated to the Golden Gate Bridge
+Directors.</p>
+
+<p>Wattenburg told us that movable pipe barriers are still the cheapest and best traffic barriers
+that can be quickly installed around many places that could be attacked by vehicles carrying
+bombs or terrorists, such as government buildings, embassies oversees, and troop encampments
+in hostile places. “The military will get around to it someday, after we lose another few hundred
+of our people.”</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><i>Note: It took until late 1998 before anyone paid serious attention to
+Wattenburg’s idea of using the barrier to protect against truck bombs. The San
+Francisco Chronicle reported
+on the successful testing performed by Lawrence Livermore National Labs (October 8, 1988).
+Unfortunately, the device still has not been used to this date.—PKS</i></p>
+
+</body>
+</html>
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