FlyWithX

Bay Area - Transportation

Airports

3 Major Airports:

SFO

By Transit:

  • From San Francisco:
    • take BART.
  • From South Bay:
    • take Caltrain to Millbrae; take SamTrans Route 292 or BART from Millbrae Station to SFO.
    • take Caltrain to San Bruno (the Caltrian station is at a different location than the BART San Bruno station), talk 15-20 min to the Long Term Parking airport shuttle station.

SJC

Served by VTA route 60 https://newservice.vta.org/routes/60 connecting Milpitas BART in 20 min. Frequency: Weekday 15 min, Weekend 20 min

OAK

Served by BART: take the BART Oakland Airport people mover from Coliseum BART to the airport.

Other airports with commercial flights

  • Sonoma County Airport (IATA: STS):
    • served by Alaska, American, United, and Avelo
    • SMART has a station nearby
  • Concord (IATA: CCR):
    • served by JSX, to Southern California

Railway

Amtrak

ACE

https://acerail.com/

Rush hour only: 4 trains from Stockton to San Jose in the morning, 4 trains from San Jose to Stockton in the afternoon.

Expansions:

  • Modesto, Ceres (2022), Turlock and ultimately Merced
  • from Stockton to Natomas in Sacramento, near Sacramento airport (end of 2023).

Caltrain

San Jose to San Francisco

SMART Train

North bay

http://sonomamarintrain.org/

BART

https://bart.gov/

131.4 mi (211.5 km), 1,676 mm; eBart standard gauge (1,435 mm)

Bay Area Rapid Transit. Connecting SFO airport and OAK airport.

No day pass for bart.

VTA Light Rail

3 lines, 42.2 mi (67.9 km). Standard gauge (1,435 mm).

MUNI Metro

MUNI day pass in app for $5

Historical Streetcars

  • E Embacadero
  • F Market & Wharves

Fleet: https://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/

PCC Streetcars + A diverse collection of trolleys, trams, and streetcars from many world cities.

https://www.streetcar.org/

SF Cable Car

The world's last manually operated cable car system.

3 lines:

  • California Street Line: west-east, along California Street, between Market Street and Van Ness Ave.
  • Powell-Mason: north-south, Powell BART/MUNI station to Fisherman's Wharf
  • Powell-Hyde: north-south, Powell BART/MUNI station to San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, west of Fisherman's Wharf

Ferry / Cruise

San Francisco Bay Ferry: from SF Ferry Building to Oakland, Alameda, Richmond, Vallejo. https://sanfranciscobayferry.com/

Golden Gate Ferry: from SF Ferry Building to Larkspur, Sausalito, Tiburon https://www.goldengate.org/ferry/system-maps/

Blue & Gold Fleet: from Pier 41 to Sausalito, Tiburon, Angel Island; and cruises https://www.blueandgoldfleet.com/

Red & White Fleet: cruises only, no ferry. https://redandwhite.com/

Tideline: Berkeley to San Francisco https://tidelinetickets.com/

Future:

BRT

San Francisco: Van Ness https://www.sfmta.com/projects/van-ness-improvement-project

AC Transit: https://www.actransit.org/tempo

VTA: Rapid 500, 522, 523, 568

Community Shuttles

Mountain View Community Shuttle: Free, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week. Funded by Google. All electric vehicles. https://mvcommunityshuttle.com/

mvgo: Free. https://mvgo.org/

Biking

Bike Silicon Valley https://bikesiliconvalley.org/

Central Bikeway Study: https://www.vta.org/projects/central-bikeway-study

Seaports

Cruise terminals: SF Pier 27 and Pier 35

Shipping ports: Port of Oakland and Port of Richmond.

Freeway

Proposal to remove I-980: http://www.connectoakland.org/

MUNI

The difference is that local buses make all stops, Rapid (R) make select stops, and Express (X) travel nonstop for a while then make all stops (and tend to be pretty peak commuter-oriented).

Here's a basic schematic, where L=Local, R=Rapid, and E=Express. The left is downtown and the right is the "outer end" of the service. A pipe (|) represents a stop while a dash (-) represents a skipped stop.

L:  |||||||||||||||||||||
R:  |---|---|---|---|---|
X:  |||----------||||||||

Excursion Trains

Skunk Train: https://www.skunktrain.com/ Originally California Western Railroad

Niles Canyon Railway: between Fremont and Sunol http://www.ncry.org/

Ardenwood Historic Farm – Fremont

California Trolley and Railroad Corporation – San Jose

Napa Valley Wine Train – between Napa and St. Helena

Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad

Santa Cruz, Big Trees and Pacific Railway

Railway Museums

  • San Francisco Cable Car Museum, Free
  • San Francisco Railway Museum

Model Trains

  • Golden State Model Railroad Museum – Richmond
  • Alameda County Fairgrounds – Pleasanton
  • Black Diamond Lines Model Railroad Club – Antioch
  • Diablo Valley Lines – Walnut Creek
  • Niles Depot Museum – Fremont
  • Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society – Walnut Creek
  • Barron Park Garden Railway – Palo Alto
  • Golden Gate Model Railroad Club – San Francisco
  • West Bay Model Railroad Association – Menlo Park
  • Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History – Santa Clara
  • Silicon Valley Lines – San Jose

Future