SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – It’s been one month since SFO changed the way Uber and Lyft drivers pick up passengers but it’s caused a bit of a traffic nightmare for drivers.
In an effort to ease that traffic, this weekend, the airport opened a new parking lot for rideshare drivers to use while they wait for requests.
This is day three of the new lot and word has trickled to the drivers, so there are times where it gets busy.
If you’ve ever waited in the cell phone lot at SFO, the TNC lot, as they call it, is right next door.
It was not at all congested getting in but the original two holding lots were definitely still suffering from backup and drivers say they hope the airport knows there are even bigger problems to fix.
Uber and Lyft drivers trying to enter the old TNC holding lots at the southside of SFO Sunday were still sitting ducks on Millbrae Avenue.
SFO is hoping this new lot on the north side of the airport will eventually even out that congestion.
“Its way better cause it fits more cars, easy to get in and out, at the other one, it would take us 40 minutes just to get in,” says an Uber driver.
While getting inside the new holding lot to wait for ride requests is a breeze, drivers say the wait to receive those requests is much longer.
And they say the real issue is with the heavy congestion they face as they go to pick up passengers on garage level 5.
“You can build as many parking lots as you want but you still need to have more than one lane in and one lane out on the top of it or it’s gonna forever be the consistent traffic jam. We need to reopen some part of departures level or somewhere else on top of the garage scenario,” says another driver.
As far as this new parking lot goes, there are 244 spaces so hopefully even as more drivers start to use it it won’t get nearly as bad as the other two.