right now, we are continuing to follow breaking news. a day of major commute disruption around the bay area, demonstrators protesting war in gaza bringing traffic to a halt for hours on both the golden gate bridge, which is still shut down as we speak, and interstate 880 in oakland partially shut down. good

afternoon. i am anne makovec. these protests have caused significant delays for morning rush hour and this is extending into this afternoon with no end in sight. it is part of a planned day of economic disruption around the country. it started when a group of protesters blocked interstate 880 in the north bound lane near fifth avenue. it was just before jack london square near the colosseum. another group blocking the south lanes of the golden gate bridge later in the morning. that prompted chp to shut down both directions of the golden gate bridge. chp telling us about 20 people have been arrested so far across both of the protests. there are still demonstrators in both of those roadways. the situation has significantly improved on 880. one lane opened -- two lanes actually a little over an hour ago so traffic is able to crawl through that area. golden gate bridge remains shut down. our chopper is overhead. you

see cars still blocking south lanes and a heavy law enforcement presence. they're standing by in the north bound lanes. for the most part, they have not moved in to remove some of the cars blocking traffic but they have started turning vehicles around, some of the people who got stuck in the mess. they're doing that at the end of the line on the bridge where they have a little room just north of the bridge by sausalito, turning vehicles around one by one. we have seen a few protesteers being detained. chp appeared to cuff a person that was in a yellow vest. you see them walking off the bridge. later another protester is led away by law enforcement, some of the 20 people confirmed arrested so far. this is a look from earlier where you see the protesters standing with the banner saying stop the world for gaza. i don't know about the world but certainly traffic on the golden gate bridge was stopped. we spoke with some of

the commuters students commuters stuck in this. one told us he understands the cause but he needs to get to work. >> i have to work for a living. i can't miss work. i understand it's a very important issue and it's very sensitive, but i don't know if this is the best way to do it. >> i am against that type of protest. >> why? >> because it disrupts traffic. people are going places and trying to live their lives too. you know, what do you think aunt judy? >> this is too violent a protest, even though they're peaceful. no, it's too violent. >> affecting a lot of people's lives today. here is a look at the back up from above. traffic is snarled on the golden gate bridge and beyond for smiles, beyond robin williams tunnel. it's been like this for

several hours. this is video earlier from vern glenn, an on the ground look. he was stuck in the traffic himself. he was trying to get his son's girlfriend to the airport. they had to turn around and she booked a later flight. see the road way packed with cars, people from marin trying to get across the bridge to san francisco. let's go to wilson walker. he is live on the san francisco side of the bridge. wilson, what is it like there now? >> reporter: listening to everything that you are telling us, my first thought is on this end of the bridge, you can't see anything. i am with photo journalist rick and his observation is he has done this 30 years and never stood in the middle of the highway like this. if you are one of the cars or one of the people trying to bike over the bridge, it's hard to see what's happening. the protest is way off out of sight especially given the arc of the bridge. you can't see what's going

on. everyone here is left to wait and sort of look at their phones and try to figure out what's going on. there is no one out here to tell you what's going on. i've got a little bit video to show you of how this unfolded. suppose you were coming to the bridge from the south, heading towards marin and got stuck and were waiting there a couple hours. what did you do? have a listen to this gentleman who was coming from the press idio trust trying to manage the situation. >> turn around. if you hear my voice and want to get off this bridge, head down the ramp on the left hand side! >> reporter: there you go. eventually after several hours, they just started giving people the option to turn the car around and head backwards down 101 which is what most people have done. if you look down the highway behind us, there is virtually no one left. the nine

cars that you see sitting here are the folks who have decided to wait it out in hopes that getting north will take less time than driving around the bay bridge over richmond san rafael bridge and on to where they are going. interestingly we can show you coming south bound at this very moment, a couple emergency vehicles and what looks like a tow truck pulling one of the cars. again, your understanding of what is happening on the bridge is perhaps better than mine here at the foot of the bridge. my understanding is sort of like we saw at the bay bridge last time, there were cars with keys thrown into the golden gate to make them immobilize so the cars have to be towed. this would appear to be perhaps one of the vehicles now getting removed from the south bound lanes. i can see the helicopter. so you can probably put this together yourselves. there has been no traffic coming south bound since i have been here for a couple hours. in fact, this might be the

first car we have seen come off the bridge since we have been here. i can also tell you we saw a couple highway patrol cars coming down from the north lane but they did not have anybody in them. we have heard there have been arrests though we don't know a number. i am not sure where those folks have gone. that's really about all we can tell you. you heard some of the interviews with folks stuck up here. imagine any range of opinion on this protest and what's happening, you can find it before all the cars were rolled away. i did speak with one of the organizers of the protest. they're standing by the bike lane that is closed. they said look, this is a deliberate act of disruption. they laid out their case and said this is going to continue until things change. that's really it. it's very quiet. there aren't many people around other than the folks kind of managing the

bridge closure. >> cal trans. >> the parking lot is pretty quiet. there are not many tourists. it is still early in the day. >> nobody is allowed to walk nor bike. so hopefully a lot of people got the message before they even headed to the area. we are taking a live look. you see several chp vehicles coming this way. wilson, thank you so much for the live look and the perspective from the san francisco side of the bridge. this is an evolving situation, so we appreciate your live report and appreciate the fact that you will be out there and continue to bring us the have i latest. taking another angle of the back up on the bridge from marin, taking a live look, a wider shot of the span. the back up has started to clear a little bit as cars headed into san francisco from the north, have given up and turned around. we've got cal trans and chp facilitating some people being able to do that. here is a look at the toll plaza on the other side where

wilson was standing. heading into san francisco, it is completely empty. we are going to continue to stay on top of this. let's get you caught up on the situation on 880. this protest started first this morning at about 6:00. about seven protesters blocking traffic in the north bound lanes in the heat of the morning commute. they chained themselves to concrete filled barrels that you can see. they hung a banner saying a15, april 15th, economic blockade, free palestine. this is a live picture from our camera. this is the frontage road next to 880. we saw people lined up just taking pictures of what's happening, trying to figure out what is going on. this situation has been going on for hours. there they are, some supporting the protesters and documenting that. others are just wanting to be part of the action and seeing what is happening. we see a man with an

israeli flag. so you are seeing the other side of this in part of a worldwide protest taking place in the bay area. last i saw, it was tough to see what the officers are doing. there were still two protesters and one of the concrete filled barrels there in the middle of the north bound lanes. so we are continuing to watch that. they have made progress. they've been able to open two lanes of traffic going north bound. a lot of progress since 6:00 a.m. and cleared up the back up behind it which is really the good news. again, there still is police activity and a back up in the north bound direction as a lot of people try to make their way through. that's 880 in oakland. here is another angle of some protesters blocking an on ramp. this is on ramp to the south lanes on interstate 80. this is seventh street by the port. let's go to gianna franco. she's been watching

the traffic impact of all this since before it began, trying to cover a normal monday commute until things got really crazy. what's the situation? it's been a big mess across the bay area, east bay, golden gate. looking live from chopper 5, you see it looks like they're having progress. with wilson a second ago, you saw the cars being removed. hopefully, this will get moving along and these folks who have been stuck on the bridge will get a little bit of a break, this back up extending into sausalito. that's an improvement. they're turning cars around on the north end of the bridge to get cars off the road way. they have both directions still shut down. they've got the south bound side where protesters were staged as well as north bound side for safety. you see there is still chp activity as they hopefully move some of the

cars. that back up is significant especially south bound heading out of sausalito. you are really at a stand still for cars that are stuck there and don't have an option. when they move the cars, it's literally one by one trying to divert them and turn them around. you saw wilson's shot. he said a lot of cars were able to shut down on the south side, san francisco side into marin, it looks like they're moving some vehicles. some are waiting it out until they clear this. literally, not seeing action unless it's chp or a tow truck trying to get cars off the bridge. on 880 so you still have this back up north bound as you head through oakland to where the closure is south of 980. you have troubles on the south bound side, closure near seventh street. that's causing problems there in both directions. this is good news as we take a live look at one of our traffic cams. this is north of the colosseum, seeing

an improvement with at least two lanes now open. that leaves two right lanes closed near that embarcadero exit where everything is being staged. what a big difference. this was literally backed up so san leandro throughout the morning and it is getting a lot better. if you are trying to get to the bay bridge via 880, you won't have delays. this is something else we have been thinking about, keeping an eye on other bay area bridges in case we saw what happened during apec when the bay bridge was shut down and throughout the day to see if anything else is planned and could be an issue especially closer to that evening commute. the morning commute is just snarled because of this. seeing improved on north 880 with two lanes open. >> i have some good news for you now. we are hearing they are about to start opening lanes south bound on the golden gate bridge after this has been shut down for over four hours

right now. one or two lanes could be opening very soon according to the chp. we are going to continue to follow this minute by minute as things evolve. for people who have been stuck in the traffic for hours, relief could soon be on the way. we are going to stay on top of this with continuing coverage on cbs news bay area and kpix. we will take a quick break and be right back.

we are back live and we are looking at the breaking news that we have been following all day, closures on 880 and golden gate bridge because of protesters blocking the road way, pro pan stun january protesters part of an a15 protest. they call it worldwide economic blockade for gaza. joining us live is our kpix security analyst jeff harp. we have been speaking all morning long as this has been evolving. protesters have been peaceful but from a security perspective, how significant has this been, especially when talking the golden gate bridge? >> we talked earlier about it. the big problem is now you've got the bridge blocked and any emergency services that need to get through, any critical incident that happens, or any

crime activity that might happen near or around the bridge will be problematic. though things are starting to flow a little bit. it's still an issue. >> yay, yes, it certainly is. you have people trapped in their cars and this has been going on for hours. what kind of challenges does that pose? >> you had an interview with a gentleman earlier and one of the challenges it poses is irritated people will tend to take matters into their own hands. we don't want that to happen either. now you have law enforcement fully occupied. i guarantee the golden gate division of chp has every resource deployed over there. there are other things going on in the area that are important. so it's really a shame that we try up law enforcement's hands for so long when they can be doing other more productive things. >> can we talk about the law enforcement response. a lot of people are saying why don't you just blow some tear gas and

move the people out of the lanes? it's more of a delicate dance of negotiation? >> i guess you could call it negotiation. a dance is a good way to put it. they have really delicate dance they're going to have to put on here. they don't want to make these protesters anymore irritated or people in the cars anymore irritated than they are. they're trying to allow the people to voice their opinion. obviously doing it on the golden gate bridge like this is not a good idea. but they don't want to create a situation where they get something violent happening. either somebody in a car gets mad, one of the protesters gets mad. they're trying to keep this level and calm and it looks like traffic a flowing a little bit. >> yes. you see our live picture. i didn't want to interrupt but really good news, golden gate bridge is back open and south bound lanes are moving again. so we are nearing an end to at least this phase of the protest. as we were

talking about earlier, jeff, this is part of a larger protest at least nationwide if not worldwide. we are seeing protests in other cities. new york, philadelphia, chicago. the golden gate bridge has been something that nationwide people have been paying attention to because obviously it's a landmark. but we are so tied to these limited options for getting in and out of the city and around the bay area. >> yeah. >> tell us a little bit from your perspective the difficulties there and the challenges security wise. >> well, this seven by seven city that's surrounded by water and a few bridges creates challenges for security for a lot of different reasons. if we have a natural disaster, we've had multiple events in the city where in that planning stage, one of the biggest topics that comes up is how do we get in and out if something drastic

happens. that includes natural disasters, criminal activity. we had super bowl 50, a pec and now this. other things blocked the bay bridge. all these things come into play when law enforcement starts planning to try and figure out what ifs. now we have had this occur and i am sure chp and others are starting to look at what they can do to not make this go away but maybe predict it or being proactive in trying to establish some perimeter around the area that prevents them from getting on the bridge. >> so there will be time for analysis afterwards. thank you so much for your insight. we appreciate it. again, breaking news, the good news is the south bound lanes on golden gate bridge are open and we are hearing they're about to open the north bound lanes. we're going to take a quick break and be right back.

another live look at the golden gate bridge. very good news, south bound traffic is moving again. from what we understand north bound traffic is about to start moving. all lanes on the golden gate bridge after being shut down for four and a half hours because of a

protest, pro palestinian protest, things are finally moving again. very good news for people who were stuck in their vehicles on

back out live following breaking news. this is 880 in oakland, protesters still on the road way as they have been since 6:30 this morning. traffic is tied

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