Lombard Street is an east–west
street in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
that is famous for a steep, one-block section with eight
hairpin turns. Stretching from
The Presidio
''The Presidio'' is a 1988 American crime film directed by Peter Hyams and starring Sean Connery and Mark Harmon. Hyams also handled the cinematography and the score was composed by Bruce Broughton.
Plot
At the Presidio Army base in San Franci ...
east to
The Embarcadero (with a gap on
Telegraph Hill), most of the street's western segment is a major thoroughfare designated as part of
U.S. Route 101. The famous one-block section, claimed to be "the crookedest street in the world", is located along the eastern segment in the
Russian Hill neighborhood. It is a major tourist attraction, receiving around two million visitors per year and up to 17,000 per day on busy summer weekends, as of 2015.
San Francisco County Transportation Authority
The San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) is a state chartered sub-regional transportation planning and programming agency for San Francisco County. SFCTA is a separate legal entity from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation ...
''Lombard Study: Managing Access to the "Crooked Street"''
February 2017 (PDF)
San Francisco surveyor
Jasper O'Farrell named the road after Lombard Street in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
.
Route description
Lombard Street's west end is at Presidio Boulevard inside
The Presidio
''The Presidio'' is a 1988 American crime film directed by Peter Hyams and starring Sean Connery and Mark Harmon. Hyams also handled the cinematography and the score was composed by Bruce Broughton.
Plot
At the Presidio Army base in San Franci ...
; it then heads east through the
Cow Hollow neighborhood. For 12 blocks, between Broderick Street and
Van Ness Avenue
Van Ness Avenue is a north–south thoroughfare in San Francisco, California. Originally named Marlette Street, the street was renamed Van Ness Avenue in honor of the city's sixth mayor, James Van Ness.
The main part of Van Ness Avenue runs fro ...
, it is an
arterial road
An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below freeways/motorways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector r ...
that is co-signed as
U.S. Route 101. Lombard Street continues through the
Russian Hill neighborhood and to the
Telegraph Hill neighborhood. At Telegraph Hill it turns south, becoming Telegraph Hill Boulevard to Pioneer Park and
Coit Tower
Coit Tower is a tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, offering panoramic views over the city and the bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's beq ...
. Lombard Street starts again at Winthrop Street and ends at
The Embarcadero as a
collector road.
Lombard Street is known for the one-way block on
Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, where eight sharp turns are said to make it the most crooked street in the world. The design, first suggested by property owner Carl Henry
and built in 1922, was intended to reduce the hill's natural 27 percent grade,
which was too steep for most vehicles. The crooked block is about long ( straight line), is one-way (downhill) and is paved with red bricks. The sign at the top recommends .
The segment normally sees around 250 vehicles per hour, with
average daily traffic
Annual average daily traffic, abbreviated AADT, is a measure used primarily in transportation planning, transportation engineering and retail location selection. Traditionally, it is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a ...
reaching 2630 vehicles in 2013.
During peak times, vehicles have to wait up to 20 minutes to enter the Crooked Street segment, in a queue that can reach
Van Ness Avenue
Van Ness Avenue is a north–south thoroughfare in San Francisco, California. Originally named Marlette Street, the street was renamed Van Ness Avenue in honor of the city's sixth mayor, James Van Ness.
The main part of Van Ness Avenue runs fro ...
.
To reduce habitual congestion and delays, future visitors may be required to reserve a time and pay a fee to drive down the crooked street.
The Powell-Hyde
cable car stops at the top of the block on Hyde Street.
By 2017, the area around the curved segment had become a hot-spot of what has been described as "San Francisco's car break-in epidemic." This may in part have been due to its heavy traffic and association with tourism.
The
Academy of Art University
The Academy of Art University (AAU or ART U), formerly Academy of Art College and Richard Stephens Academy of Art, is a private for-profit art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded as the Academy of Advertising Art by Richard S. ...
owns and operates a building called Star Hall on the street for housing purposes.
Past residents of Lombard Street include
Rowena Meeks Abdy
Rowena Fischer Meeks Abdy (April 24, 1887 – August 18, 1945) was an American modernist painter. She primarily painted landscapes and worked in Northern California.
Early life and education
She was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1878 to America ...
,
an early California painter who worked in the style of
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
.
Chase scenes in many films have been filmed on the street, including ''
Good Neighbor Sam,'' ''
Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine
''Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine'' is a 1965 American International Pictures comedy film, made in Pathécolor, directed by Norman Taurog. It stars Vincent Price, Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, Susan Hart and Jack Mullaney, and features F ...
,'' ''
What's Up, Doc?,'' ''
Magnum Force
''Magnum Force'' is a 1973 American neo-noir vigilante action thriller film and the second to feature Clint Eastwood as maverick cop Harry Callahan after the 1971 film ''Dirty Harry''. Ted Post, who had previously worked with Eastwood on '' Ra ...
'', and ''
Ant-Man and the Wasp
''Ant-Man and the Wasp'' is a 2018 American superhero film based on Marvel Comics featuring the characters Scott Lang / Ant-Man and Hope Pym / Wasp. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is th ...
.'' Lombard Street is also portrayed in the 2015
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californ ...
film ''
Inside Out.''
Major intersections
Gallery
File:Lombard Street San Francisco no cars.jpg, Looking east down the curvy block of Lombard Street, with the straight section continuing towards Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower
Coit Tower is a tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, offering panoramic views over the city and the bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's beq ...
File:Lombard Street - San Francisco.jpg, Looking up Lombard Street
File:Lombard Street (San Francisco) Sign Photowalkabout March 23 2013-8673.jpg, Traffic caution sign at top of switchbacks recommends a top speed of
File:LombardStreet.jpg, Cars exit from lowest switchback section
File:Lombard Street San Francisco.jpg, Time-exposure photo at night clearly shows the eight switchbacks
See also
*
Vermont Street, the other San Francisco street claimed to be the "most crooked"
has seven turns instead of eight, but its hill is steeper than Lombard's.
*
Snake Alley in Burlington, Iowa, once recognized by ''Ripley's Believe It or Not!'' as "The Crookedest Street in the World". Like Lombard Street, it has eight turns but over a shorter distance.
References
External links
Tourist Trapped: The Crookedest Street In The World SFGate Culture Blog
(includes early images)
on San Francisco To Do
{{Streets in San Francisco
Landmarks in San Francisco
Russian Hill, San Francisco
Streets in San Francisco
U.S. Route 101