Transit panel hopes commuter lots ease Bay Bridge traffic

One of the region’s most notorious traffic nightmares — the Bay Bridge during rush hour — is back in force after a pandemic-induced lull, and the Metropolitan Transit Commission is hoping that two new commuter lots will help alleviate some of the logjams.

The lots, 261 spaces adjacent to Interstate 80 at Buchanan Street in Albany and 89 spaces beneath the I-880 at Fruitvale Avenue in Oakland, are both served by AC Transit’s Transbay express bus lines and the Oakland location is a short walk from the Fruitvale BART station. Both locations will offer free parking in December and January before moving to a $3-per-day fee in February.

“This is part of the Bay Bridge Forward initiative, which is designed to make better this consistently confounding commute corridor,” said John Goodwin, MTC spokesperson. “Traffic volumes through the Bay Bridge corridor are practically back to 2019 levels, and enough people may get fed up that they seek an alternative that is less costly and less stressful.”

Bay Bridge congestion is near pre-pandemic levels with over 3.7 million cars crossing the Bay Bridge toll booth in the month of October, according to the most recent data provided by the MTC, a 91% recovery of 2019 levels. The bridge saw congestion bottom out at just under 2 million vehicle crossings in April of 2020 before starting a gradual recovery.

While traffic has sped back to near pre-pandemic levels on the bridge, public transit ridership remains in its pandemic slumber, as many people are still wary of entering transit systems due to health concerns and remote work has upended tech-oriented commutes. BART’S ridership in October was at a quarter of 2019 levels, with only 108,645-weekday riders compared to over 400,000 in 2019.

Darrell Owens, vice president of the East Bay Transit Riders Union, said new park-and-ride lots will have little impact on congestion if the buses are unable to lure drivers out of their cars with faster commutes.

“Park-and-rides are only as important as the service is fast. The problem now is that with the lack of bus-only lanes on the freeway the transit is slow,” said Owens. “You’re already in your car and you’re going to be in the same exact traffic so what’s the difference?”

Public transit advocates and authorities have long called for a bus-only lane on the bridge, saying dedicated lanes are key to making the buses more reliable and quicker to compete with vehicles. But further bottlenecking Bay Bridge vehicle traffic into four lanes instead of the current five has met strong opposition from drivers.