Papers in Australia reported last week that a computer failure closed the M5 tunnel in Sydney. According to the papers, this is the 5th time that the AU$794 million 4.5 km long tunnel suffered a closure since it opened in 2001.
Last week's closure began at 0710 and lasted until about noon, affecting tens of thousands motorists and causing traffic jams kilometers long. Technicians did try to go to the back-up system, but that failed as well. No reason has been given yet as to why the primary and its back-up system failed.
Yesterday, it was estimated that 27,000 motorists gave up in frustration and took a sick day as a result of the tunnel closure.
Two days before the tunnel failure, a computer problem on Sydney's Spit Bridge (its a bascule, or lift bridge) at 1930 kept it open until about 2200, which affected thousands of motorists as well.
Being ever so helpful, a government city planner said the next day that if those motorists who were left waiting just lived closer to downtown Sydney instead of the suburbs, they wouldn't have been affected by the bridge problem.
That bit of advice didn't go down especially well.
The tunnel computer failure is reminiscent of the one that shut down Seattle's bus tunnel last December. That one lasted for a couple of days. Good thing that didn't happen in Sydney - who knows how many Sydney workers would have called in sick.
