Tourists may grumble, but some Russian Hill residents are warming to the idea of charging a toll to coast down the crooked block of Lombard Street, where cars crawl at a glacial pace as drivers take in the view.

Others say it would make things worse. Still others are willing to try anything to ease the gridlock that can turn a one-block drive into a 20-minute exercise in sit-and-wait.

“I think it could help,” said Ernestine Campagnoli, who has lived for decades in an apartment on Larkin Street a block west of San Francisco’s famous twisty, red brick street. She and other neighbors will get a chance to weigh in on a proposed reservation and pricing system during a community meeting on Wednesday at Yick Wo Elementary School, just downhill from the curvy section.

Campagnoli has been to many such meetings. She doesn’t begrudge the 2 million tourists who crowd the street every year to take selfies or ogle the brick switchbacks. But she’s frustrated with the traffic jams that stretch for three blocks down the surrounding streets, with drivers who dawdle in intersections or blare their horns every time the Powell-Hyde cable car clanks up the hill to deliver more people.

“The ‘Do Not Block the Intersection’ signs are a joke,” said Nancy Frank, who lives at Lombard and Larkin streets, next door to Campagnoli. She said the bottlenecks get so bad on weekends that residents have trouble backing out of their driveways. Some have put makeshift signs on their mailboxes to discourage idling in crosswalks and intersections, to no avail.

The effects on pedestrians are more severe, Frank said — navigating a crosswalk means pinballing between car bumpers.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is considering a toll as a possible intervention. The proposal, which has been gestating for two years, is ambitious but divisive. It would impose a reservation system and fares of up to $10 for drivers visiting the red-brick road. Under one scenario, tolls would hover at $5 on weekdays (9 a.m. to 9 p.m.) and then double on weekends and holidays; under another, fares would be $5 every day. Motorists would have to book their half-hour time window online.

Residents of the crooked block would probably be exempt from the toll, as would their visitors, workers and delivery vehicles. Officials are considering whether to charge a fee for other San Francisco-registered cars, which comprise only about 5 percent of the traffic on the road . Those drivers would still have to make reservations, said SFCTA spokesman Eric Young.

Former Mayor Mark Farrell pressed the congestion pricing concept as a city supervisor. He said it would ease traffic on streets that feed into Lombard, which is in the district he represented.

The district’s current supervisor is more cautious in her support.

“For years, I have been working to address the quality-of-life issues brought about by the millions of people who visit Lombard Street and the residential neighborhoods around it on foot and in cars,” District Two Supervisor Catherine Stefani said Monday. The Transportation Authority’s plan would “address half this problem by managing the blocks of bumper-to-bumper traffic that build up on the way to the crooked street.”

Public meeting There will be a public meeting to discuss the Lombard Street proposals from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Yick Wo Elementary School, 2245 Jones St. in San Francisco. For information: https://bit.ly/2S7CDI3

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San Francisco couldn’t start charging tolls on its own, however, because Lombard Street is a public road, so the city would need enabling legislation from the state.

Pedestrians would still be able to use the street freely, which came as welcome news to dozens of tourists who trudged on foot up the famous hill Monday morning.

Erica Liu, who arrived on one of the many tour buses that park on Columbus Avenue, said the toll proposal didn’t bother her — she had no desire to maneuver the street’s hairpin turns in a car, then attempt to find parking at the bottom. Florida tourists Ian Greenen and Monika Phillips welcomed the proposal, hoping it would generate revenue to keep the street clean and festooned in flowers.

“If it’s well-kept, people will definitely pay the fee,” Greenen said.

Other visitors were appalled.

“It sucks,” said Domenico Ciarallo, a traveler from Montreal, who was snapping cell-phone photos of the street sign at the Lombard and Hyde street intersection on Monday.

“They’re always trying to make money off of tourism,” he added.

Agustin Huneeus, who has lived at the base of the crooked street since 1985, said tolls would only exacerbate the traffic snarls.

“Most traffic is from out of town, and they will have no idea they should have made a reservation or paid a fee,” he said. “So rather than be fined or charged, they will back up, try to divert, park and walk down. That’s messy and adds to the neighboring jam,” while creating a parking disaster, he said.

Neighborhood resident Frank, by contrast, said she would tentatively back the pay-to-drive model, but would prefer something even more drastic: banning cars from the crooked section of Lombard Street altogether, except for people who live on the block.

Ideas that are not on the table: railroad crossing-style gates, straightening out the street, or any new infrastructure that would disturb the neighborhood aesthetics, Young said. Most likely, the city would install parking control officers to collect the tolls and let cars in at the top of the hill, or license-plate-reading cameras to charge drivers electronically.

The Transportation Authority is still pondering whether to charge bicycles, e-scooters, or other motorized vehicles such as Segways — a pack of which rolled down the corkscrew path Monday morning, slowing a Lyft driver behind them.

“Oh, I’d definitely charge for that kind of s—,” said Madison McCarley, who was visiting from Philadelphia.

Her companion, Mark Risley, nodded and pointed at the Segways. “I think the city should charge them double.”

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @rachelswan