Lombard Street's crooked block
Attraction · Russian Hill, California
The one-way block of Lombard Street between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, laid out in eight hairpin turns and paved in red brick. Traffic runs downhill only. A sign at the top of the block recommends 5 miles per hour. The roadway is about 600 feet long and covers 412.5 feet in a straight line. The Powell-Hyde cable car stops at Hyde and Lombard Streets, at the top of the block.
History
The switchbacks were built in 1922, to a design first suggested by the property owner Carl Henry as a way of working around the hillside's 27 percent grade. The block normally carries around 250 vehicles an hour, and average daily traffic on it was 2,630 vehicles in 2013.
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