Bart Strike Slows Bay Area To A Crawl Tens Of Thousands Forced To Find New Way To Jobs In San Francisco

A strike against the Bay Area’s commuter rail system caused monumental traffic jams on bridges and highways Monday, including a backup more than 15 miles long.

The walkout Sunday by 2,600 union workers brought the 93-mile Bay Area Rapid Transit system to a standstill, forcing tens of thousands of people to find a new way to work. For many, that meant taking the bus or driving - and waiting.

“I realize how dependent I am on BART. Before, I took it for granted,” said Dawn Adams, a lawyer from Castro Valley who took a bus. Her trip took more than two hours - four times longer than normal on BART.

It took up to 40 minutes to get through the toll plaza at the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the main route into San Francisco from eastern suburbs. A backup of at least 15 miles was reported on Interstate 80.

Sharon Kidd of Berkeley said her normal 15-minute commute on BART, which carries 275,000 passengers daily, turned into a 3-1/2-hour nightmare as bus after packed bus passed her by. She finally had to take a bus in the opposite direction to get one that had room to bring her into San Francisco.

Colin Jones, a spokesman for the state Transportation Department, said the morning commute was one of the worst ever.

“We were hoping it wouldn’t be this bad,” he said.

The trip home was just as bad - especially with the sold-out Monday night football game between the Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs. Fans who normally use BART’s Coliseum station to get to Raiders games had to drive, causing gridlock on Interstate 880.

AC Transit bus officials said some 50,000 people - five times the usual number - squeezed onto buses bound for the ride home to Alameda and Contra Costa counties. At the Embarcadero, some commuters waited hours to board ferries headed for Alameda and Oakland.

The striking train operators and mechanics are demanding higher pay and the end of a two-tier wage system, in which newer employees are paid less for the same job.

Monday afternoon, BART board vice president James Fang and a group of union leaders met with Mayor Willie Brown in his office to discuss the status of negotiations.