4 ms·

I definitely laughed. But I'm curious, how is public transportation in SF? Is it possible to get by without a car or is that a silly pipe dream? Edit: for con

by llambda 15y ago

I definitely laughed. But I'm curious, how is public transportation in SF? Is it possible to get by without a car or is that a silly pipe dream? Edit: for context, I'm a Seattleite who has been transplanted to NYC and is now looking to make it back to the West Coast (ideally, Cali!)

tobobo 15y ago
It's possible, but having access to Zipcar is quite essential for pretty much anything outside of the city limits - rail expansion was severely hampered by some nearby suburbanites who were afraid that the worst of the city was going to take the train out to visit them, so you have to get in a car if you want to visit your classist neighbors.
- llambda 15y ago
  I suppose I could just Google this, but if you know off the top of your head, is ZipCar subject to the same age rules as normal car rentals? i.e. I think you have to be 26 or is it 24 before you can rent?
  - rdouble 15y ago
    you have to be 21
- whyenot 15y ago
  It's not "essential" -- there is BART, Caltrain and a pretty extensive public transportation system in the greater bay area, but ZipCar could be a useful additional tool. As far as your history lesson on rail expansion. You have it completely backwards. The bay area had a very extensive rail system 60-70 years ago. One level of the bay bridge was just for trains. Google the Key System for more information. When cars increased in popularity, most of the train and tram system outside of San Francisco went bust, rail corridors were turned into expressways (a great example on the peninsula is Foothill Expressway that runs from Stanford University to Cupertino).
  - rdouble 15y ago
    It's not totally essential but trips outside the city are 2-3x slower without a car. When you factor in wait times and switching trains/buses, you can spend half the day in transit to do a trip which only takes 40 minutes each way in a car. Also, many destinations in the surrounding area are suburban or semi-rural. You need the car when you get there, because where you actually want to go is not usually near the transit station. For example, it was theoretically possible for me to take public transport from SF to TechShop in Menlo Park, but it involved 2 hours of trains and a very limited bus service or 45 minute walk through an industrial park. Or, I could just drive there in 40 minutes.
  - impendia 15y ago
    No, the parent is largely right, BART was going to go to more places but San Mateo and Marin were cool to the idea and backed out. http://www.bart.gov/about/history/index.aspx http://www.bart.gov/about/history/index.aspx
andymoe 15y ago
No, you can get by. It's just annoying at times and you have to make sure you live 1 bus away from where you work or you will be hating life. You can also do the bike thing if you are careful. (Dear SF bikers, red lights mean stop for you too - you will get hit that way.)
rdouble 15y ago
I lived in San Francisco without a car for about 4 years. San Francisco is very small. It's possible to walk from the ballpark to Ocean Beach in about 2.5 hours. I often walked from my home in Cole Valley to my office in SoMa, even though I could just take the Muni. The public transportation is pretty good for a city in the USA but pretty bad compared to Europe and really bad compared to Japan. People who like the public transportation in SF usually live near one of the Muni train lines. People who hate the public transportation are usually in a neighborhood where they are stuck taking the bus (which is most of the neighborhoods). That said, having a car in SF is nice, too. The downside is parking. The upside is being able to just drive over to Safeway for groceries, or drive up to Marin, or throw a surfboard on the roof and go down to Pacifica or Santa Cruz. You can get most of the way there with Zipcar, but I found that if you regularly want to get out of the city on weekends, Zipcar was not as cost effective as owning a beater automobile. I just saw your edit. The public transit is not as good (comprehensive) as NYC but is a little better than Seattle.
- ascott 15y ago
  I have had a car here in SF for the last few years, and only use it to go shopping, or get out of town. Last month I picked up a little motorbike - it is super convenient in the city. Parking everywhere, and for the most part, motorists are fairly contentious.
  - rdouble 15y ago
    I liked my motorcycle for city riding, but I didn't have the nerves to ride on any of the surrounding freeways so I got rid of it. Something like a Vespa would be amazing in SF.
  - sciurus 15y ago
    I think you meant conscientious. Contentious means confrontational.
potatolicious 15y ago
I've lived in both places - public transit in SF beats the pathetic pants off of Seattle for sure. It won't hold a candle to NYC though, so you may be disappointed. It's entirely possible to live without a car - very, very much so, but be prepared to pay if that's the case (i.e. neighborhoods well served by transit are expensive, think Manhattan rents... up to $2K for a studio? You bet!).
- hazzen 15y ago
  I would much rather ride a Seattle bus than a SF bus, but the likelihood of finding a bus that goes from A to B (without a transfer) is much higher in SF than in Seattle. This is partly a product of Seattle's shape, where the obvious thing for any bus to do is run north-south from a neighborhood to the downtown corridor. It is also a product of density, which Seattle doesn't really have in large quantities. And re: expensive neighborhoods for transit. I think your numbers are quite a bit off - sure, if you want to live near the main Caltrain station, you are looking at that much. But you can easily find a large 1 bedroom for $1600 within 5 minutes of the light rail or BART for a total transit time to downtown of 10-15 minutes.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    When is the last time you rented? My impression is that the rental market is picking up significantly and there are noticeable rent raises even month to month at this point (bubble, anyone?) Being near BART is going to set you back at least $1700 at the very low end for a studio, $2000 for a 1BR. More for both depending on quality of the place, naturally. You might hack 10% off either of those prices if you pick up a particularly sweet deal. FWIW, I signed my current place last month, so that's when my knowledge of the current rental market ends. I talked to numerous people including an apartment hunter, all of whom expressed incredulity at how much prices are shifting, even on the order of a couple of months.
    - juiceandjuice 15y ago
      I just moved into a 3BR by Glen Park bart for $2800/mo. Technically though, it's excelsior/Mission Terrace, so that excludes me from hip status. General San Franciscan rule: If your neighborhood has parking, it isn't hip.
whyenot 15y ago
I got by without a car when I lived in SF. It can be inconvenient if you make many trips outside the city, but it's not hard at all, and considering the high cost of living in SF, a great way to save some money as well.
voyou 15y ago
San Francisco's MUNI has the problems of most large urban public transport systems (it can be a bit slow, it's not perfectly reliable, every now and then they'll be some crazy person ranting to no-one in particular), but it's OK; half an hour and two buses (or a train and a bus) will get you most places in the city. San Francisco's also pretty small - about seven miles square - so yes, it's pretty easy to get around in the city itself without a car. Of course, this only applies if you're working for one of those hipster Web 2.0 companies that are actually based in San Francisco itself - if you need to get around Silicon Valley, you'ld almost certainly need a car.
- llambda 15y ago
  I guess that begs the question, relative to the apparent hike in rental prices, are the SF-based tech companies paying enough to get by on?
  - btcoal 15y ago
    In my limited experience: no. I'm sorry but $40k pre-tax is not a liveable salary in SF or any medium-->big city.
  - rdl 15y ago
    Tech company pay is great, if you mean later stage. Google, etc all pay salaries which would seem crazy outside the bay area, and iPads cost the same anywhere.

by llambda 15y ago

tobobo 15y ago

It's possible, but having access to Zipcar is quite essential for pretty much anything outside of the city limits - rail expansion was severely hampered by some nearby suburbanites who were afraid that the worst of the city was going to take the train out to visit them, so you have to get in a car if you want to visit your classist neighbors.

llambda 15y ago
I suppose I could just Google this, but if you know off the top of your head, is ZipCar subject to the same age rules as normal car rentals? i.e. I think you have to be 26 or is it 24 before you can rent?
- rdouble 15y ago
  you have to be 21
whyenot 15y ago
It's not "essential" -- there is BART, Caltrain and a pretty extensive public transportation system in the greater bay area, but ZipCar could be a useful additional tool. As far as your history lesson on rail expansion. You have it completely backwards. The bay area had a very extensive rail system 60-70 years ago. One level of the bay bridge was just for trains. Google the Key System for more information. When cars increased in popularity, most of the train and tram system outside of San Francisco went bust, rail corridors were turned into expressways (a great example on the peninsula is Foothill Expressway that runs from Stanford University to Cupertino).
- rdouble 15y ago
  It's not totally essential but trips outside the city are 2-3x slower without a car. When you factor in wait times and switching trains/buses, you can spend half the day in transit to do a trip which only takes 40 minutes each way in a car. Also, many destinations in the surrounding area are suburban or semi-rural. You need the car when you get there, because where you actually want to go is not usually near the transit station. For example, it was theoretically possible for me to take public transport from SF to TechShop in Menlo Park, but it involved 2 hours of trains and a very limited bus service or 45 minute walk through an industrial park. Or, I could just drive there in 40 minutes.
- impendia 15y ago
  No, the parent is largely right, BART was going to go to more places but San Mateo and Marin were cool to the idea and backed out. http://www.bart.gov/about/history/index.aspx http://www.bart.gov/about/history/index.aspx

andymoe 15y ago

No, you can get by. It's just annoying at times and you have to make sure you live 1 bus away from where you work or you will be hating life. You can also do the bike thing if you are careful. (Dear SF bikers, red lights mean stop for you too - you will get hit that way.)

rdouble 15y ago

I lived in San Francisco without a car for about 4 years. San Francisco is very small. It's possible to walk from the ballpark to Ocean Beach in about 2.5 hours. I often walked from my home in Cole Valley to my office in SoMa, even though I could just take the Muni. The public transportation is pretty good for a city in the USA but pretty bad compared to Europe and really bad compared to Japan. People who like the public transportation in SF usually live near one of the Muni train lines. People who hate the public transportation are usually in a neighborhood where they are stuck taking the bus (which is most of the neighborhoods). That said, having a car in SF is nice, too. The downside is parking. The upside is being able to just drive over to Safeway for groceries, or drive up to Marin, or throw a surfboard on the roof and go down to Pacifica or Santa Cruz. You can get most of the way there with Zipcar, but I found that if you regularly want to get out of the city on weekends, Zipcar was not as cost effective as owning a beater automobile. I just saw your edit. The public transit is not as good (comprehensive) as NYC but is a little better than Seattle.

ascott 15y ago
I have had a car here in SF for the last few years, and only use it to go shopping, or get out of town. Last month I picked up a little motorbike - it is super convenient in the city. Parking everywhere, and for the most part, motorists are fairly contentious.
- rdouble 15y ago
  I liked my motorcycle for city riding, but I didn't have the nerves to ride on any of the surrounding freeways so I got rid of it. Something like a Vespa would be amazing in SF.
- sciurus 15y ago
  I think you meant conscientious. Contentious means confrontational.

potatolicious 15y ago

I've lived in both places - public transit in SF beats the pathetic pants off of Seattle for sure. It won't hold a candle to NYC though, so you may be disappointed. It's entirely possible to live without a car - very, very much so, but be prepared to pay if that's the case (i.e. neighborhoods well served by transit are expensive, think Manhattan rents... up to $2K for a studio? You bet!).

hazzen 15y ago
I would much rather ride a Seattle bus than a SF bus, but the likelihood of finding a bus that goes from A to B (without a transfer) is much higher in SF than in Seattle. This is partly a product of Seattle's shape, where the obvious thing for any bus to do is run north-south from a neighborhood to the downtown corridor. It is also a product of density, which Seattle doesn't really have in large quantities. And re: expensive neighborhoods for transit. I think your numbers are quite a bit off - sure, if you want to live near the main Caltrain station, you are looking at that much. But you can easily find a large 1 bedroom for $1600 within 5 minutes of the light rail or BART for a total transit time to downtown of 10-15 minutes.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  When is the last time you rented? My impression is that the rental market is picking up significantly and there are noticeable rent raises even month to month at this point (bubble, anyone?) Being near BART is going to set you back at least $1700 at the very low end for a studio, $2000 for a 1BR. More for both depending on quality of the place, naturally. You might hack 10% off either of those prices if you pick up a particularly sweet deal. FWIW, I signed my current place last month, so that's when my knowledge of the current rental market ends. I talked to numerous people including an apartment hunter, all of whom expressed incredulity at how much prices are shifting, even on the order of a couple of months.
  - juiceandjuice 15y ago
    I just moved into a 3BR by Glen Park bart for $2800/mo. Technically though, it's excelsior/Mission Terrace, so that excludes me from hip status. General San Franciscan rule: If your neighborhood has parking, it isn't hip.

whyenot 15y ago

I got by without a car when I lived in SF. It can be inconvenient if you make many trips outside the city, but it's not hard at all, and considering the high cost of living in SF, a great way to save some money as well.

voyou 15y ago

San Francisco's MUNI has the problems of most large urban public transport systems (it can be a bit slow, it's not perfectly reliable, every now and then they'll be some crazy person ranting to no-one in particular), but it's OK; half an hour and two buses (or a train and a bus) will get you most places in the city. San Francisco's also pretty small - about seven miles square - so yes, it's pretty easy to get around in the city itself without a car. Of course, this only applies if you're working for one of those hipster Web 2.0 companies that are actually based in San Francisco itself - if you need to get around Silicon Valley, you'ld almost certainly need a car.

llambda 15y ago
I guess that begs the question, relative to the apparent hike in rental prices, are the SF-based tech companies paying enough to get by on?
- btcoal 15y ago
  In my limited experience: no. I'm sorry but $40k pre-tax is not a liveable salary in SF or any medium-->big city.
- rdl 15y ago
  Tech company pay is great, if you mean later stage. Google, etc all pay salaries which would seem crazy outside the bay area, and iPads cost the same anywhere.