The Tunnel and Bridge Crowd

As a long-time commuter from Oakland to San Francisco, I knew that the collapse of part of the MacArthur maze meant, on this the first day after the accident, that the morning commute would be easy and the evening one a great unknown.

Thus, I Casually Car Pooled. I stood in line until a driver who wants to save time -- and four bucks -- by whizzing up the carpool lane stopped to let a couple of strangers into her car. The woman who stopped said she figured the morning commute would be easy but that when she saw all of us standing there in line (the number of drivers depleted; the number of moochers augmented) out of the kindness of her heart she decided to stop.

I call that kindness.

Going home? Casual carpooling only works in one direction because we only pay tolls and have a fast lane in one direction. I'll try Bart and bus, I guess.