All my life, I've known about San Francisco at a personal level though I've never actually lived there. I've visited by land and sea and air, spent significant time working in the City and Oakland and other parts of the Bay, eaten wonderful food and traveled by car, bus, train, BART, and boat all over the Bay. Okay. I thoroughly "get" the Bay Bridge. I even saw it after the Loma Prieta earthquake when it was still closed. I've stayed on Treasure Island for weeks at a time. I've spent hours in heavy traffic trying to get across. But in all this wealth of experience, I've never, not once, EVER had the slightest need to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. I've steamed under it in both directions. I've taken pictures of it. I've never needed to cross it. Where does it actually GO? Sausalito? Who cares about Sausalito? What's there to justify this magnificent (and magnificently expensive) engineering achievement?
I lived in Berkeley and rarely used the Golden Gate Bridge. There are some beautiful areas to visit across the bridge. For example, we used to love to go back packing at Point Reyes.
The bridge takes you to Marin County, which over time ebbs and flows in popularity as a weekend destination. Also, as San Francisco became more and more unaffordable and more urban, Marin County became a great alternative place to live.
I thought about that, but Marin County is one of the most expensive places to live in the country! So, I guess the Golden Gate Bridge is basically commuter infrastructure. Seems like a pretty modest role for such a world recognized feat of engineering. It DID pay for itself pretty quickly. It's no white elephant. International Orange elephant?
