Bay Bridge closure snarls traffic

CNN) -- The indefinite closure of a major artery linking the California cities of San Francisco and Oakland snarled traffic Wednesday and left commuters frustrated.

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was closed Tuesday night after pieces fell from the span onto the roadway. The 73-year-old bridge spans the San Francisco Bay and carries an average 280,000 vehicles daily, according to the state's Transportation Department.

"My wife actually drives over to the peninsula; she says it's taken her two hours to get to work so far and she's not there yet," commuter Seth Carp told CNN affiliate KTVU as he prepared to board a Bay Area Rapid Transit train.

"I tried to take the Golden Gate Bridge," said a woman who identified herself only as Yemi. "It was a big mistake." She gave up and wound up taking BART.

"Today was just jam-packed," said Christina Chou, who lives in Foster City near the San Mateo Bridge, which served as an alternate route for many. "It was back-to-back bumper, there were rows of cars everywhere," she said. "It was just horrible."
Map: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

Ridership increased on ferries, with some people finding a silver lining to the snafu. "I have been looking for an opportunity to go across the bay in the ferry," said Jack Pierce of Oakland. "I'm sorry the cable parted, but I am glad to get the opportunity."

Repair work began Tuesday and continued Wednesday. "All the materials are in place out on the Bay Bridge right now that arrived last night," Transportation Department spokesman Bart Ney told reporters Wednesday morning.

He said wind gusts were slowing the repair efforts.

"Our main concern is for worker safety at this point," he said. "They are going to be working about 120 feet off the upper deck of the Bay Bridge placing thousands of pounds of steel to complete this repair."

Travelers flocked to BART, which ran longer trains and extra trains. The rail line was on track to exceed its peak ridership of 405,000 in a single day, said BART spokesman Linton Johnson.

Were you there? Send photos and video

"We have called in extra personnel to help us make sure we operate with every available train car we have in order to provide as much capacity as possible," said BART's assistant general manager of operations, Paul Oversier.

Alameda-Contra Costa Transit said that for the Wednesday commute it was running regular weekday service, but its "buses will detour to four East Bay BART stations so that passengers can continue to San Francisco on BART."

Amtrak was running a shuttle between the San Francisco and Martinez Stations for Coast Starlight and California Zephyr passengers.

The pieces that fell, described as a cross beam and tie rods, came from the same section that was repaired over Labor Day weekend in September, when crews worked almost around the clock to fix a crack in the span.

A 50-foot section of the bridge collapsed in 1989 during the Loma Prieta earthquake, killing one person and prompting efforts to make the bridge quake-tolerant.

The whole bridge is slated to be replaced in 2013, said Patrick Siegman, a transportation planner at Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates, a national transportation planning firm based in San Francisco.

The bridge is "really showing its age," he said. "It's kind of a race against time to finish the new bridge before the next quake hits."