Evening Commuters Backed Up to Ddowntown S.F.
By Charles Burress and Bill Wallace
Chronicle Staff Writers
A speeding Mercedes crossed the center divider on the Golden
Gate Bridge yesterday afternoon and caused a fatal multi-car
pileup that partially closed the span for nearly four hours,
the California Highway Patrol said. The high speed crash
caused a chain reaction accident involving nine other vehicles,
turned bridge approaches into a huge parking lot and clogged
miles of San Francisco and Marin County roadways.
A 38 year old woman driving a BMW southbound died instantly
in the head-on crash. Authorities withheld her name until
relatives could be notified.
The driver of the Mercedes Benz sedan, Joseph Cowan, a 56yearold
Novato man, suffered major injuries and was admitted to
Marin County General Hospital with multiple facial fractures
and lacerations. A nursing supervisor said he was in serious
condition after six hours of surgery last night. The CHP
said Cowan was northbound in the fast lane: at "a high
rate of speed" when he encountered slower traffic and
changed lanes into the southbound lane to pass the northbound
traffic. Cowan's Mercedes was so completely shredded that
it was not immediately clear to onlookers whether it was
one vehicle or two rammed together.
At
least two other victims, men in their 20s, were admitted
to San Francisco General Hospital, one with a spleen injury
and the other with a possible collapsed lung. They also
had cuts, scrapes and bruises. The small Honda they had
been riding in was destroyed, its front end smashed all
the way back to the rear of the engine compartment.
Bridge
authorities said the accident occurred at 3:23 p.m., the
very beginning of the afternoon commute rush. The bridge
was rendered impassable immediately. It took more than an
hour to get one lane of traffic moving again, and the entire
span was not clear until 7:13 p.m.-by which time frustrated
commuters were backed up all the way into downtown San Francisco
and Marin City.
In
Marin County, Highway 101 was packed with an unbroken line
of cars. In San Francisco, grid locked vehicles stretched
back along Lombard Street to Van Ness Avenue, while side
streets that lead to the span were choked as far back as
Golden Gate Park and the Marina. Commuters quickly realized
they were stranded and shut off their engines. Some got
out of their autos to stretch their legs, while others listened
intently to their car radios, hoping for news of progress
in clearing the roadway. On Crissy Field Avenue, a muni
bus driver sat resignedly in his No. 29 Sunset bus while
his solo passenger waited outside, smoking a cigarette.
The driver, Terry Mauricio, an 11year veteran of the city
transit system, said he was heading toward the bridge at
4:13 p.m. when he became snared in the backup.
"I
called Central as soon as I got stuck," he said with
a shrug. "They told me there was an accident on the
bridge and that I should wait until it was clear."
Mauricio was not alone. Dozens of Golden Gate Transit buses
and private charter lines-filled with passengers bound for
Santa Rosa, San Rafael and other North Bay destinations-were
hemmed in by the traffic. Lucky northbound bus passengers
fortunate enough to get back to the Ferry Building were
able to catch ferryboats to the North Bay. Unfortunately,
one of Golden Gate Transit's ferries had been taken out
of service earlier, so commuters experienced delays up to
an hour even by using the marine route. Nor was Highway
101 the only one affected by traffic problems. A pair of
smoky grass fires on Altamont Pass shut down Interstate
580 for part of yesterday afternoon, forcing the Highway
Patrol to escort drivers over the busy pass in groups of
15 or 20 cars at a time.
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