The Crookedest Street in the World - Lombard St San Francisco
By Paula on Mar 11, 2008 in San Francisco, USA
This afternoon we took a walk up to Lombard St which has the distinction of being known as the Crookedest Street in the world.
The street is about a 10 minute walk from our hotel and the walk is mostly uphill. As we all know, some of the streets in San Francisco can be quite steep, still it was worth the walk as it is fun watching the cars trying to navigate their way down through the street.
Apparently a stretch limousine once tried to drive through the street but couldn’t make one of the turns and was stuck in the street for 2 days and eventually had to be taken out by a crane.
The street has a set of stairs on each side for pedestrians to walk up so we made the trek to the top. I wouldn’t want to live in that street. Cars come down it just for fun and there are always tourists wandering up and down the street taking photos and talking and calling out at each other. However, there are a number of residents on the stretch of road that has lovely Victorian style homes and Carol Channing the actress lives on this street.
In 1923 the switchback design was instigated in an effort to reduce the hill’s 27% grade as it was too steep for most vehicles. The speed limit is 5 mph (8km/h) on the winding section which is about 1/4 mile (400 m) in length.
Actually Lombard Street is not the crookedest street in San Francisco. Vermont Street which runs between 20th St and 22nd Street near the San Francisco General Hospital is actually the crookedest street in the city with seven tight turns, however it is located in a much less picturesque location than Lombard St and away from the tourist route.
We climbed the stairs right to the top, up one side and down the other.
