The Great San Francisco Traffic Jam Of 2023

Our photos of the La Nina (yes, again) caused traffic jam that paralyzed the evening commute out of San Francisco. Early in the day a La Nina powered storm brought tropical storm level wind gusts over the Bay Area causing a semi-truck in the East Bay direction on the Bay Bridge to literally be blown on its side and jack knife. Of course the CHP and Caltrans had to close all the lanes on the bridge leaving San Francisco causing a MASSIVE traffic jam as commuters trying to leave the city on AC Transit, WestCat, and other transit agencies stuck in non-stop traffic. Some passengers literally slept on the busses till the situation resolved itself hours later. And It only got worse as the traffic backed up at the Bay Bridge quickly turning the downtown city streets into a nightmare for drivers with some commuters not even being able to get their cars out of city parking garages.

The situation became so bad that Muni drivers stuck on Market Street kept asking us what was going on and to give them updates. The situation on the Bay Bridge did eventually resolve itself, but we were long gone via BART (which wasn’t affected by the traffic mess).

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