S.F. May Throw Curve to Lombard Street’s Drivers

SAN FRANCISCO —  City supervisors, unnerved by Lombard Street’s knack for attracting potential lawsuits, voted Monday to see about putting a real kink in the “crookedest street in the world.”

By an 8-2 vote, the Board of Supervisors adopted a proposal by Supervisor John Molinari to poll people living along the block-long twisting part of the street about whether the city should permanently ban traffic from the popular tourist attraction.

Ironically, reconstruction of gas mains beneath the street will temporarily close it before the city will even get around to polling residents about a closure.

However, once the poll is conducted, probably in March, the board will formally consider erecting a barrier in the middle of the street, blocking it to all but local traffic for a six-month trial period.

The idea was something less than popular among tourists at the street on Monday.

“It’s a terrible idea; I like it the way it is,” said Gary Chow, who was visiting from Ottawa, Ontario. “This street is a real part of San Francisco. Blocking it off would ruin a nice old tourist attraction.”

The proposal by Molinari, a potential mayoral candidate later this year, echoes a similar proposal put forth in 1977 by another ambitious supervisor, Dianne Feinstein, before she became mayor.

Feinstein’s proposal died when most of the residents polled at that time said they wished to leave the quaint little lane as it is. Arthur R. Albrecht, president of the Lombard Hill Improvement Assn., said Monday, “I believe that most of the residents may still be of the same opinion.”

But Molinari, citing the congestion caused by a nearly constant stream of cars and pedestrians along the brick-paved road, said the city can no longer afford the potential liability posed by the street.

Specifically, he cited the case of one young tourist who posed for a photo by perching upon one of the low, ivy-covered walls lining the thoroughfare. A car careened down the street, smashed into her and left her crippled. She sued the city for negligence, and the city recently settled out of court for $300,000.

“It could have cost millions if we went to trial,” Molinari said.

Tourists still perch on the walls, either taking photos or posing for them, and cars still speed down the uneven, fog-slicked roadway, stopping occasionally--and unexpectedly--to admire the view or disgorge camera-toting passengers.

Molinari also said that fistfights have erupted when frustrated homeowners have tried to back out of their garages and found their driveways blocked, while joy-riding speedsters have made the street into an impromptu test track at night.

The problem even extends to surrounding streets, especially in the summer, as cars waiting to slalom down the serpentine landmark tie up both automobile and cable-car traffic atop fashionable Russian Hill.

Despite the problems, Molinari’s proposal met with criticism from a number of people. A fellow supervisor, Doris Ward, noted that the street is heavily promoted to tourists, who constitute the city’s biggest single industry, and denying them a turn down the street could foster much ill will.

“God knows what will be next--Alcatraz?” she asked during lengthy debate on the matter.

Albrecht said he is not sure there is any way to solve the problem of congestion, even with a barrier.

“The assumption is that if you close the street, the tourists stop coming,” he said. “That may be a good assumption, and it may not be. If they do continue to come, where are they going to go? They may go down neighboring streets or park everywhere.”

But he said Molinari is right to worry about safety.

“There is a danger problem. Molinari is quite right,” he said. “The question, I think really, is what can you usefully do to reduce the danger without creating more problems than you already have?”

He suggests posting traffic police at the top and bottom of the hill, at least during peak traffic hours. “That would afford at least some kind of control over having too much traffic going down too fast,” he said.

Norman E. Bray, principal traffic engineer for the Public Works Department, said that block of Lombard Street at this time of year carries an average of 1,500 cars each weekday and 3,500 a day on weekends--an average of one car every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day. The speed limit is 5 m.p.h.

Bray said the street was built in a serpentine fashion in the 1920s because of its steep grade, although some other nearby streets--including the city’s steepest, Filbert Street, two blocks south--are straight but steeper.

Although Lombard, with eight full turns in one block, is indeed the most crooked street in San Francisco, if not the world, it is not the only dizzy drive in the city.

Vermont Street, in the city’s Potrero Hill section, has five full turns and two half turns in one block, and Broderick Street in Pacific Heights switches back four times in half a block before dead-ending in a private driveway.