Commuter bus, truck involved in fatal crash on Bay Bridge

San Jose Mercury News (CA)

May 29-- May 29--OAKLAND -- The ripple effects were felt throughout the region's highways and transit systems. BART estimated at least an additional 10,000 people hopped on trains heading from the East Bay into San Francisco to avoid the traffic mess.

A passenger in the truck was killed and two others injured, authorities said. Two bus passengers complained of pain and were also hospitalized.

The Alameda County Coroner's Office had not released the dead man's name as of mid-afternoon.

The California Highway Patrol said the collision was first reported at 4:28 a.m. in the westbound lanes of the bridge, east of Treasure Island. A Sig Alert was soon issued. All lanes of the bridge were reopened by 9:30 a.m.

The CHP said the box truck with three occupants slammed into the rear of a BART commute bus in the extreme right lane, heavily damaging the front of the truck and causing it to tip on its side. It was not immediately known who owned the truck or where it was headed to.

VIDEO: One person was killed and four others injured on the Bay Bridge

CHP Officer Bert Diaz said speed is being looked at as a possible factor in the on-going investigation..

The truck occupants were taken to a hospital where one passenger died and the driver and other passenger were being treated for serious injuries.

The bus is owned by the Golden Gate Transit District and was one of those commissioned by BART to transport early morning commuters because of work being done on the Transbay Tube. It had picked up about 20 passengers at BART's MacArthur and 19th Street stations as well as at two other spots in Oakland before getting onto the bridge, district spokeswoman Priya Clemens said.

Clemens said the bus's destination was the Salesforce Transit Center. She said another Golden Gate Transit District bus arrived shortly after the crash, picked up the passengers from the bus involved in the collision and transported them to the center. Golden Gate Transit re-routed all other Golden Gate bus trips to access San Francisco by traveling across the Richmond-San Rafael and Golden Gate bridges to avoid the long Bay Bridge delays, she said.

The driver of the bus involved in the collision is undergoing standard drug and alcohol testing, Clemens said.

BART said its operations control center reported an increase of about 10,000 riders through the Transbay Tube by 10 a.m. following the back up on the Bay Bridge.

At a 2 p.m. press conference Wednesday afternoon at the West Oakland BART station, BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost and General Manager Grace Crunican expressed their condolences to friends and family of the collision's victims: "Our hearts are thinking about them."

Trost then updated plans to accommodate the additional 10,000 passengers who rode BART Wednesday morning.

BART ran extra commute trains at the end of the morning rush hour from Bayfair and MacArthur stations into San Francisco, Trost said.

"What our riders can expect to see today is longer trains, more ten-car trains than you're used to seeing in the commute" Trost said of the afternoon rush.

Since commuters can expect crowding, particularly at BART's Embarcadero and Montgomery stations, Trost urged would-be riders to leave work a little early or stay later, and to otherwise be aware of "metering," where station agents coordinate with operations staff to limit fare gate entry until train traffic clears crowded platforms.

"We want to make sure the region understands that today's example of how one accident can impact tens of thousands of people, and that's really our future at BART. We know there's going to be extra riders in the near future. BART's already at capacity, and BART has a plan to expand our capacity through the Transbay Tube."

Crunican called on the federal government to fund BART's Transbay Corridor Core Capacity Program, which she said could boost train frequency by more than 30 percent and overall capacity by 45 percent.

"We're the third largest economy in this country, and we make the region work. We're also the ones that tie housing to jobs, especially the jobs in San Francisco and the homes in the East Bay," Crunican said. "We're very critical to the economy of the Bay Area."

In a statement, BART said it has $2.3 billion in secured or planned local funding, but needs $1.25 billion more in grant funding from the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Grants Program, as well as FTA approval to start an engineering phase. Each year of delay will cost taxpayers $120 million, BART added.

As of 8:45 a.m. all of the bridge lanes, except the one where the collision happened, were open. The CHP said one of the reasons for the delay in reopening the last lane was because 40 gallons of diesel fuel that spilled onto the roadway after the collision had to be cleaned up.

Commute traffic on Interstate 80, Interstate 580 and Interstate 880 was backed up for miles and commuters were being advised to take alternate bridges. Traffic on all freeways was still impacted in the early afternoon.

Check back for updates.

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