Transbay Turmoil makes US Open commute difficult

COLMA, Calif. (KGO) -- People traveling to The Olympic Club for the U.S. Open Golf Championship felt the effect of the Transbay turmoil. Golf fans were encouraged to take BART to the event, but that didn't work out too well for many of them.

Since there's really no place to park at The Olympic Club golf course, part of the BART Colma Station parking lot was set up as sort of a gathering place where the specters could come and board shuttle busses to the course. In the morning, almost everyone who came to the Colma station took BART from San Francisco and the peninsula cities, which the system serves. Noticeably late or absent were those from the East Bay.

"I was on the Concord platform 5:55 a.m. this morning. Got the message, crossed the crawl "no San Francisco service,'" said one man.

That's how the day started for a lot of people who were going to the US Open. Many of the 35,000 spectators expected Thursday planned to take BART to Colma, then ride shuttle buses to the golf course. If you came from the East Bay, it meant taking AC Transit buses across the bay.

"They got us to the Transbay Terminal, but we still had to get to another BART train and then another BART train," said Consuello Crosby, a spectator.

And that meant delays. Jeff Weigum decided to take his car, but the roads and bridges were packed with those who had the same idea.

"A lot of detours, a lot of working around stuff," said Weigum. He said his delay was at least an hour.

Sid Ewing decided to take the ferry to Colma from Jack London Square. The whole detour took forever.

"8:30 to one o'clock so it took us four and a half hours&from Oakland," said Ewing.

Alicia Aghevli rode BART from San Francisco to Colma. She had no problem, but her friends from Oakland did.

"They're not going to come today because of all the traffic that's happening, because of the fire on BART or whatever, so we're trying to find people to take my tickets," said Aghevli.

Thursday afternoon, a lot of spectators from the East Bay were leaving the course early. Many hoped BART was back in full service. U.S. Open volunteer Doug Schiel's home is in Pleasanton. He told his wife he'd be home for dinner.

"My wife did, sent me a text message. She said, 'Good luck,'" said Schiel.

BART's full service was back in time for the evening commute. Many people drove to Candlestick Park where they could also board shuttles and that lot was filled to capacity.

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BART, us open golf, colma, peninsula news, vic lee

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