Another Sunday night meltdown at SFO Growing pains continue with new rideshare pick up zone

Pick up zone D adjacent to Terminal 2 at SFO's new rideshare lot on a quiet afternoon- unlike the chaos seen on recent Sunday nights. Pick up zone D adjacent to Terminal 2 at SFO's new rideshare lot on a quiet afternoon- unlike the chaos seen on recent Sunday nights. Photo: Chris McGinnis Photo: Chris McGinnis Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Another Sunday night meltdown at SFO 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

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For the second Sunday night in a row, the new rideshare pickup area at San Francisco International Airport turned into a heated and chaotic scene as hundreds of drivers and riders struggled to find each other.

As we reported last week, on Sunday, June 9, riders waited up to an hour to find rides in the new central pick up zone on the top floor of the central parking deck at SFO, taking to Twitter to vent their frustrations. Drivers lined up to enter the new zone in a queue that extended out of the airport and down Highway 101.

According to a rash of angry tweets and some statistics from Uber, the same thing occurred this past Sunday night, June 16.

In a statement to SFGate, an Uber spokesperson said, "Unfortunately, our concerns about the recent changes to the SFO pickup experience were confirmed again this past Sunday, for the second week in a row. The airport's decision to move rideshare pickups to the garage continues to result in increased congestion there, higher cancellation rates and, on average, nearly triple the wait times. We continue our best efforts to mitigate the impact for riders and drivers and remain hopeful that the airport will reconsider this decision."

Uber says that prior to the opening of the new rideshare pick up area, the average time it took for a ride to show up after a rider requested it was about nine minutes. On June 9, that average jumped to 25 minutes, and on June 16, it was 23 minutes. Cancellations ballooned, too, from an average of 8 percent before the move to around 30 percent after between the hours of 8 pm and 12 midnight.

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SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel told us, "Traffic moved better last night than it did the previous Sunday, but we still experienced backups for TNC [Transportation Network Companies] cars entering the pickup lot. This Sunday night period is unique; it's about 20-30 percent busier than any other period during the week. We have already implemented several measures to address getting TNCs into the pickup area during these peak evening periods, and we're continuing to make adjustments to this."

One upside to this change: Departures level roadways are back to normal. SFO's Yakel said that the new process is "having the desired effect on roadway speeds around the terminals" which has increased from a traffic snarled 8-10 mpg to 12-15 mph.

Until this is worked out, marooned riders should consider walking to SFO's International Terminal where drivers can still pick up at the departures level curbside. Or pay more for an Uber Black or SUV, which are still allowed to use the now un-crowded departures level curbs. Uber says requests for these more expensive rides have doubled on the last two Sundays. Also, taxis still depart from the lower arrivals level and BART runs from SFO until midnight.

We'll keep an eye on this, and would appreciate your feedback and observations about the new rideshare pick-up routine at SFO- leave it in THE COMMENTS.

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Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.