From K-QED. Bait curious listener Stephanie Schmidt lives in San Francisco and works north of the city in Marin County.

For years, she's driven across the Golden Gate

Bridge almost every single day. I've been crossing that thing probably near on

10,000 times easily. It used to be a semi terrifying experience,

not just for Stephanie, but for most drivers.

The lanes on the bridge are narrow,

and for decades there was very little separating the traffic heading in opposite directions.

There were these flimsy yellow plastic tubes that were placed every few feet or so,

but that was the only barrier.

It felt like you were driving head on into traffic.

I mean, there was a reason why it was a nickname, a suicide lane, because you were very exposed.

Several times a day to help with traffic flow, workers would move the tubes and change the

number of lanes in each direction.

I mean they had a guy hanging out the back of a pickup truck moving the pegs which

just didn't look safe. It wasn't super safe. That's why just over two years ago

Stephanie noticed something on her drive had changed.

Instead of flimsy tubes, now there's a big steel and concrete barrier.

Driving across is much less terrifying.

But moving a big heavy barrier like that

can't be done by a few guys in a pickup truck.

Now they have a special custom-made vehicle,

dubbed the zipper machine.

...