BART extends commuter service to handle crowds after accident on Bay Bridge

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Commuters who usually drive to San Francisco turned to BART by the thousands this morning after a fatal accident on the Bay Bridge caused a massive backup.

Bart officials said by 8:00 am, they had 4,000 more riders than usual.

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"I was trying to drive but the times for driving said hour and 50 minutes, basically two hours just to get across the bridge because of some big accident," said Malaysia Franklin after waiting in a long line to buy a ticket at the West Oakland Bart station.

Tyrina Lang was at the West Oakland station trying to get her 6-year-old to San Francisco in time for her field trip.

"We usually commute from Vallejo. We carpool. But everything was just so backed up and I had to get her to school. So we had to hop out of the car right here and literally get on Bart because they're still talking about a whole other hour until we get her to school. It's just- it's too much," Lang said as she ran for the train.

We also heard stories of people running late for work and even surgery. Steve Tabor was set to have open heart surgery in San Francisco at 10:00 am. We saw him at the West Oakland Bart station after 9:00 trying to fit into a train.

VIDEO: Traffic backed up for miles after crash on Bay Bridge

It was a massive traffic backup that had Bay Area commuters scrambling to hop on BART and the ferry.

"We started two hours before, at 8 am, and we thought for sure we'd get to SF and Geary by 10. And then we suddenly saw that there's a 3 hour back up. So we decided to do Bart and now the trains are full," he said.

The trains were very full. People were squeezing into the very last amount of space possible on the trains.

Tabor couldn't fit onto the first one that stopped but he made it onto the second and looked like he would make it on time.

Some people just decided to give up altogether.

"My husband drives in and he saw the freeway on-ramp and turned around and was like I am going to hold off on driving to the city for a while," said Megan Kondrasky.

BART officials said they ran the commuter trains for longer than usual to maximize Transbay capacity.