Bay Area/ San Francisco/ Transportation & Infrastructure
Published on April 21, 2017
Massive Power Outage Knocks Out Traffic Lights, Closes Montgomery BART/Muni [Updating]Photo: Flickr

The morning commute has been complicated by an apparent power outage in downtown San Francisco, which a number of people are reporting has taken out traffic lights and pedestrian signals throughout Union Square and the Financial District.

PG&E's outage tracker currently makes no mention of the outage, but it's being reported by numerous people on Twitter:

The power outages are affecting Muni and BART, too, with Montgomery station shutting down at 9:15am due to the outage. (BART says the issue was caused "by a technical problem with PG&E.")

Trains on both the Muni and BART lines appear to be skipping Montgomery, asking passengers to exit at Embarcadero or Powell stations instead. All the cable car lines are also down. 

We'll have more on this breaking story as it unfolds. 

Update, 9:45am: PG&E is aware of the outage, but it's still unclear how many are affected or when it will be resolved. 

The outage appears to have extended as far west as the Presidio and the Richmond District: 

Update, 10:31am: According to a voicemail from PG&E, the outage is currently affecting a whopping 87,613 customers. The agency hopes to resume power by 12:15pm. 

Here's a map of the areas affected (the interactive version is here): 

Image: PG&E

The outage appears to have been caused by a fire at an electrical substation at Larkin and Eddy streets:

Update, 11:26am: The fire at the electrical substation is now out.

Update, 12:09pm: Montgomery Station is back open after BART set up generators to supply power.

PG&E has also restored power to 10,000 customers in the city, leaving approximately 85,000 still without power.