It's one of San Francisco's most photographed spots: a steep block of red brick zigzagging down Russian Hill, lined with flower beds, as cars inch around one tight hairpin after another. It's often called the crookedest street in the world. But if you've heard it has seven turns, it's time for a recount.
Lombard Street's famous one-way block actually has eight sharp turns. It was built that way in 1922 to tame a natural 27 percent grade that was too steep for most vehicles. Another San Francisco street, Vermont Street, is the one with seven turns, and some say it's actually the more crooked of the two.
Why the Street Zigzags
The crooked block runs between Hyde and Leavenworth streets in the Russian Hill neighborhood. Property owner Carl Henry first suggested the design. By winding back and forth, the road spreads the steep drop over a longer path.
The numbers show how it works. In a straight line, the block is about 412 feet long, but the winding road stretches about 600 feet. Traffic goes one way, downhill only, and a sign at the top recommends just 5 miles per hour.
Lombard Street itself is much longer than its famous block. It runs east to west across the city, from the Presidio to the Embarcadero, and part of it doubles as U.S. Route 101. Surveyor Jasper O'Farrell named it after Lombard Street in Philadelphia.
A Traffic Jam of Tourists
The crooked block draws around two million visitors a year, and as many as 17,000 a day on busy summer weekends, according to 2015 figures. It normally sees about 250 vehicles an hour, and at peak times drivers may wait up to 20 minutes just to start down. The line of waiting cars can stretch all the way back to Van Ness Avenue.
The Powell-Hyde cable car stops right at the top on Hyde Street. Hollywood loves the street, too: chase scenes for films like The Love Bug and What's Up, Doc? were shot there, and it shows up in Pixar's Inside Out.
Rivals for the Crooked Crown
Lombard isn't the only contender. Vermont Street, in San Francisco's Potrero Hill district, has seven sharp turns between 20th and 22nd streets. It's steeper than Lombard and paved with concrete instead of brick, and a measurement of curviness found Vermont more crooked, with a sinuosity of 1.56 compared with Lombard's 1.2. Members of San Francisco's Department of Public Works have backed that up.
Then there's Snake Alley in Burlington, Iowa, built in the 1890s to get up a steep hill. Three German immigrants designed it, inspired by winding vineyard paths in France and Germany. Its bricks were laid at an angle to give horses better footing, and like Lombard, it's one-way downhill. In 2017, Ripley's Believe It or Not! recognized it as Unbelievably Crooked.
Writer Robert Ripley saw Snake Alley in person in the 1940s, and Ripley's Believe It or Not! once named it the crookedest street in the world. Like Lombard, it has eight turns, but it packs them into a shorter distance.
So whether you count seven turns or eight, Lombard Street has earned its fame. Just count carefully on your way down, enjoy the flowers, and keep it at 5 miles per hour. As ways to tame a hill go, it's hard to beat.
