Good Government ...

Every town has an outpost of traffic hell. In the Washington DC metro area it is the Wilson Bridge, where the Beltway and co-habiting Interstate 95 cross the Potomac. It gets especially interesting when they raise the bridge in the middle of rush hour.

Well, the Wilson bridge is being rebuilt, and the new higher one is open, so the question, of course, is what to do with the old one, and the answer was blow it up. However, who should blow it up. The Feds and the locals got together and held a contest. The person with the worst commute got the prize of terminating the old bridge with extreme prejudice

A Maryland commuter who crushed his hip in a crash on the old Woodrow Wilson Bridge has won the right to detonate the 45-year-old span.Dan Ruefly, of Accokeek, Md., was selected today as the winner of a contest to find the person who suffered the most frustration at the hands of the drawbridge, which carries Interstate 95 across the Potomac River near Washington, D.C.

An essay about Ruefly was chosen from 312 entries by five television and radio traffic reporters. Ruefly's prize is the ultimate payback: triggering the detonation charges that will knock down nearly a half-mile stretch of elevated steel girders that supported the old bridge.

Update: Let's go to the video



Which was not nearly as good as the demo of the Cooper River Bridge (better music too)