i'd just like to say that i'm really deeply disappointed that it's come to this. >> the bad news came shortly after midnight. bart is on strike. and 400,000 people need to find another way to get to work and around. we have team coverage ahead. the commute is jammed and now there is a crash making things even worse. the bart strike has many bay area commuters looking for another way.

good morning. thank you for joining us monday morning, first day of july i'm pam cook. >> and good morning, i'm dave clark. >> we begin with breaking news. bart workers on r on strike. and now 400,000 bart riders need to find another way to get around. ktvu alex savidge begins our team coverage this morning. alex is in san francisco where some bart workers are walking the picket line. alex. >> reporter: they are. they have been out here for the last couple of hours this morning. striking bart workers tell me they really feel sorry for commuters it had to come to this. they said they had no other choice. i want to show you the scene. you can see a group of about a dozen or so striking bart workers. union employees with picket signs standing here outside of the civic center bart station right now. a total of about 2400 bart employees are on strike this morning. and service across the system is shut down.

these employees include train operators, station agents, and maintenance workers. this all comes after negotiations broke off last night between bart management and two employee unions. a negotiator i talked with out here this morning tells me the the major sticking points in those negotiations were addressing safety concerns include lighting in many ostiums. pay was another big issue. the latest offer from bart was a 2% annual raise. another issue is contributions to health care and pension benefits. representative from iciu told me this strike is necessary to get what she believes is a fair contract. >> we apologize at the inconvenience. we regret it came to this. it wasn't anything we didn't do. we tried our west to sr. -- our

>> reporter: she said both unions left the bargaining table early. she believes that the unions are refusing to negotiate and refuse to negotiate up until the mid night deadline. no talks are scheduled at all today. this bart trike will go on here. sister you have a -- no talks scheduled as of right few. live in san francisco alex savidge ktvu channel 2 news. this bart strike is expected to create gridlock on the bay area highways. sal is watching traffic. there is an accident to talk about right now. >> not one, not two, but three.

there is one near highway 4. the traffic on 80 is going to be slow. news chopper 2 is overhead. he's trying to look up. you can see he's trying to kind of hone in on what is going on. you can see the traffic is stopped again there is one crash reported near highway 4. and the traffic is going to be terrible here coming down. news chopper 2 will get closer. let's go to the toll plaza. if the chopper gets back we'll have another one up. there is some movement here. great idea for you is to use usual car pooling. help people out. and get yourself through the toll plaza much easier. we'll have another traffic

update just minutes ahead. tori campbell is live in the number. you knew about those options. >> yeah. as we have been reporting all morning multiple agencies are stepping up to get people in and out of san francisco. now in san francisco muni is preparing for extra passengers. it plans to prioritize service on the 14 mission and the 49 -- and -- clipper e-cash can be used on both samtrans and cal train. samtrans are being asked to look for their regular buses at temporary stop outsideover san

mateo county. good morning, christine. >> born. >> how are things going? >> i'm at the san francisco sam tran system. >> tell a little more about the free shuttles. where can riders find those? >> we're operating a shuttle that is going to go from the daily city. so riders should just look outside those stations for the shuttle. >> are you going to be able to add extra trains or extra service during this bart strike? >> as our regular cal train riders can tell you, many of the trains during the regular commute are already at

capacity. so what we can provide is very limited. reporting live in the number i'm tori campbell. now back to dave and pam. san francisco ferry offering special services. janine de la vega is out at oakland jack london square where the first ferry is about to take off. >> reporter: a lot of extra people. the first ferry took off four minutes ago. you can see a line has started to form. san francisco bay ferry service says they are ready to handle all of these extra commuters.

he came an hour and a half early. ferry operators have adjusted their schedules. both will be departing every 45 minutes. up through 11:15 this morning. rather than making any stops. besides the ferry service using all of their available boats. golden gate is helping out. commuters we spoke to said since they normally take bart says they are not happy. >> normally when we take bart in it's kind of early. >> not happy about it? >> as i can tell, no. >> if you are taking a ferry to the city, you cannot buy tickets on board. a ticket office has been set up here at jack london square.

they are encouraging people to car pool or get dropped off if you can. again space is limited on the phones. if you are coming here on a bicycle, make sure to come early. >> many bay area commuters can remember the last time bart workers went on strike. it was september 1997. and this was the result. a lot of extra cars out on the road. traffic across the bay area a nightmare. back in 1997 bart carried 275,000iers on a weekday. now it carries 400,000 passengers a day.

for the very latest information on the bart strike any time of day including what you need to know about alternate routes and track services that are helping people get to work you can two to our ktvu home page. bart is on strike. sal has some problems out there. you've got the chopper working. >> that is right. we have news chopper 2 on 80 and contra costa county. i want to show you this crash. we have a couple one reported on highway 4. and the other just west of the carquinez bridge. traffic is just a mess. we aringing -- another crash appeared onen ever conclusive -- and you can see just how bad the traffic is as he pans over

to the right. i can see the traffic is going to be very, very slow coming through. so we've only been able to find one crash. let's hope we don't find two. chp thought there were two crashes. and traffic is just a huge mess as you drive from the carr key mast bridge. let's go to the bay bridge which is very slow. expect for the middle lanes. a lot of people who don't normally drive are at toll plaza. if you are driving in antioch highway 4 is slow. 680 is not bad. a good alter nat route -- alternate route would be eight o'clock 0. let's 0 -- 680. there is a little bit of fog near the coast. there is a little bit of a

stronger sea braze. huge difference this is some of the temperatures really not so much today. some of the forecast projections are extremely hot. just an amazing difference. 60s for some. 50s for others. a little bit of a west wind for some. 98 in las vegas. all time record highs set in the desert southwest. if you are inland it will be hot. temperatures continue to be all over the map which is why inland areas will stay hot. the bay and the coast not changing that much. tomorrow will be the key day.

on tuesday it looks cooler. >> you heard steve a severe heat warning again for the bay area. the agency that runs california's power grid wants you to save energy. they want you to reduce energy. that is when we use air conditioning the most. bart workers have begun a strike that is making for a tough commute. we will continue with our team coverage of this bad monday morning. here's a live look at the bay bridge toll plaza. we're live in oakland where bart workers may be on strike. but ac transit.

welcome back to the ktvu channel 2 morning news. we are keeping a very close eye on the commute this morning in light of the bart strike. this is a live picture out at walnut creek. the bart station there. you can see a very long line of people. people started lining up hours ago. we've been out there since 4:00 this morning. they are weight for the special charter buses. but now bart workers are on strike. talks between the two sides came to an abrupt end last

night when bart workers walked out of the negotiations. again a live look at the walnut creek bart station. the tickets for the buses first come first serve. at this point no new talks between the negotiations have been scheduled. ac transit buss are rolling today. that is a relief for commuters. tara moriarty is joining us live from west oakland to talk about how bart is using charter buses. >> reporter: you know i think you would be very hard pressed to find an empty bus. we just saw a -- bart has actually hired 58 buses for $70,000 a day. they will be picking up folks from 5:00 until 9:00 this morning. shuttling them to four different locations in the. and into san francisco at.

>> i woke up up at the same time. i knew the shuttles would be starting at 5:00. they said it was first come first serve. i figured there would be thousands. >> reporter: earlier this morning we were at the ac transit hub. where a worker said he is going to all the bus stations. and -- workers are embroiled into their own contract. a talks between the two sides are still ongoing but they are keeping the buses rolling so they have agreed to put their differences aside basically. the bart charter bus will be

going the opposite direction. we will keep tabs on all of that for you. we will head downtown to check on the ac transit buses. live from oakland i'm tara moriarty ktvu channel 2 news. >> we want to hear our the bart strike is effecting you so far this morning. go to our ktvu facebook page and share your story. tell us what you are doing differently. we have developing news to tell you about a horrible story. arizona reeling from the worst firefighterring tragedy. 19 firefighters were killed battling a wild fire. it happened while they were attacking a fire in the town of yarnell. which is 85 northwest. that fire a ever den and phone -- the fallen firefighters were part of an elite team. >> we are devastated. we lost 19 of the best people

you would ever meet. >> the crew tried to detect themselves by deploying fire resistant shields. president obama expressing his condolences to the families of those firefighters. president obama called the firefighters heros who quote put themselves in harms way to protect the lives and property of fellow citizens they will never meet. the president is traveling in africa and says the federal government is is already assists let's check. >> we have a crash in hercules. westbound 880 as you head off

toward the carr it is very, very slow. as we move up higher here it is slowing way down. coming out from the bridge heading out toward the hercules area. and then after that you're in more slow traffic driving toward berkeley and oakland. once you get to the bay bridge it's backed up big time. within of the things we -- one of the things we have seen the traffic in the fast track lanes is better than the regular cash lanes. of course the car pool lanes are doing very well. open here you see the buses -- and here you see the buses running through. all right let's talk about the livermore valley. traffic is moving along okay here. nothing outs of the ordinary. we also have a look at hayward. southbound 880. there is a new crash.

southbound southbound bridge not bad. let's go to steve. thank you. a little bit of high cloud deck is coming through. 50s and 60s and 70s far enough inland yes it's warm. today leaning on slightly l cooler forecast. tomorrow could be blistering hot if one forecast model is right one is 20 degrees cooler. cool to hot depending on your proximity inland. tomorrow we'll know a lot about the rest of the. if tomorrow jumps up i've seen

predictions of 110 the other says 92. it looks like it will be cooler toward the end of the week. time now 6:. the bad ws came just after midnight. bart workers are on strike. we are closely watching your morning commute. good morning, traffic is a mess coming out of the carquinez bridge. westbound heading out to hercules because of a crash. you can just see how terrible it is. we'll tell you about this straight ahead. ♪ we don't have a ten step filtering process for our water. we don't need it. because crystal geyser is made by nature, not by man. crystal geyser is always bottled at the mountain source.

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welcome back. time now 6:25. we are keeping an eye on the effects of the bart strike this morning. this is a ferry ready to pick up people in oakland. they are trying to find another way to get around this morning. we'll keep you posted. now the first bart strike since 1997 is under way this morning. the entire bart system is shut down. many bay area commuters are using ferries like this one to get to where they need to go. janine de la vega is checking the ferry for you this morning. she will be back in a couple minutes as part of live team coverage. courthouses across the bay area and california will begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couple this morning. the san francisco county clerk's office began conducting

same sectionings shortly after the ninth circuit court lifted its stay. and it also opened again on saturday and sunday. the supreme court rejected an energy petition from prop 8 supporters to stop county clerks from issuing same sex marriage licenses in california. since friday the san francisco county clerks office says it has herb issued 563 same sex marriage licenses. what is happening out there sal? >> we have slow traffic on 80 because of a crash. i want to show you 80 westbound. it's very, very slow coming. bay bridge toll plaza is backed up to the mcchar they are maze- - mccarthur maze. let's go to steve. thank you, sal. a little bit of fog on the coast. it looks like the higher crowds will move out of the area.

it will still be cool for some and mild to hot. 6:27 is the time. it's not just bart on strike today. the other bay area city where thousands of city employees may be walking off the job. we are keeping you up to date. the latest on the big bart strike. it's all ahead.

welcome back. ringing the opening bell this morning. i want to let you know about the organization there. it's called the mission continues. it's a national veterans service organization. it helps post 9/11 veterans. members of the military transition from the military into leadership roles. back at home. so they are helping out and honoring some of th