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About The Bay: More Workers Means The Worst Commute In Bay Area History

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— With more people working in the Bay Area than ever before, one of the biggest strains it's having is the impact on traffic.

The commute to work and back seems to be getting worse every day and it's not just on the freeways. KCBS' Mike Sugerman started driving to work in 2011 after three decades of taking public transportation and he doesn't like it.

It's not just freeways either. The construction going on in San Francisco's SoMa, where many of the people funneling into the city from the East and South Bay end up, is mucking up the works.

Sugerman describes staring at green traffic lights as they change to red, back to green, and then red again without going anywhere. Every day a different street has a lane closed due to the copious amounts of construction whether it is the Central Subway Project, the new Trans-Bay Terminal, condos or new office buildings going in.

John Goodwin with the Metropolitan Transportation District said it could be as bad as it ever has been in the Bay Area.

"Sure, you've got a lot of construction going on. That's brought a lot of construction jobs, but you have completed projects with a lot more workers there and you also have more housing in South of Market," Goodwin said.

As of July 2014, there were more people working in San Francisco than in any other time in history. The former record high was in the midst of the high-tech boom in February 2001.

Contra Costa, San Mateo and Solano counties all are experiencing the same issue where more people are working than ever before in their communities.

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