I Tried Every Way to Commute to SF from the East Bay in One Week
Spoiler: I was late to work three out of five days
For almost six years, I’ve taken BART every day from Berkeley to work in the Financial District. At about 20 workdays a month, that’s 1,380 round trips logged, more than $11,000 spent, at least a dozen Clipper Cards lost, 75 commuter checks cashed in by long-suffering Walgreens employees, and over 2,000 hours total spent in the soothing company of BART’s horrific screech.
Every morning is a game of maneuvering and shuffling and strategizing while trying in vain to respect western social norms of personal space.
BART, on the whole, kind of sucks. But commuting is a necessity, and I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve learned small ways with which to optimize my time in the gritty bowels of “rapid” transit. I know exactly where to stand on the platform, how to jockey for a successful transfer and which escalators to avoid during rush hour (Montgomery Station—Sansome and Sutter).
I see the same people: the businesswoman with a startling talent for applying liquid eyeliner while in motion, the elderly lady who wears a Chernobyl-grade gas mask every day regardless of the air quality, and the teenage skateboarder who gets his pull-up reps in—other passengers be damned. I’ve learned the delicate art of clenching a backpack between my thighs while simultaneously avoiding booty-bumping the guy behind me, and being careful not to lock eyes with the dad I babysit for who’s two feet away, embroiled his own personal commute hell.
I get off a clattering BART smelling like burning rubber and then walk past a robot that dances while serving people coffee. Something’s wrong here.
You get it. Every morning is a game of maneuvering and shuffling and strategizing while trying in vain to respect western social norms of personal space. It’s well known that the still-chugging-along BART system is overcrowded and struggling to scale with the rising population, which is especially frustrating, given that we live in America’s tech capital. I get off a clattering BART smelling like burning rubber and then walk past a robot that dances while serving people coffee. Something’s wrong here.
Unfortunately, the measures and initiatives aimed at improving BART aren’t keeping up; it’s only gotten more crowded. I mean, don’t get me wrong—I was thrilled when they took the carpeting out (yes, carpeting), and once in a blue moon, I get one of the rare shiny, new trains. But overall, the “sardine effect” is noticeably more intense by the time we shudder into Embarcadero every morning. And the slow-moving line of commuters waiting to enter the station after work is getting longer by the day.
I’m not imagining it. The Bay Area commute has grown considerably since 2010, ballooning by nearly 10 percent. The number of cars entering the city has grown by 27 percent, and combined BART and Caltrain ridership to San Francisco has grown by a full 30 percent.
At the same time, the number of options for transportation into the city has doubled from seven to 14, according to the agency’s analysis. In the spirit of experimentation, I thought I’d try (nearly) every way to get to work in one week in hopes of discovering a new favorite way to transverse the bay. Or maybe ol’ BART will still be waiting, whispering from the tunnels, “I’m your best option, baby.”
Monday: BART
I figured I’d start with my baseline. I left my apartment in downtown Berkeley at 8:00 a.m. and caught an 8:15 San Francisco train. It was one of those cars with a row of single seats on one side — better for packing in vertical bodies. There were no seats available (never during rush hour), but I had comfortable breathing room, so it was smooth sailing through Oakland. No loud music, no weird smells, no shouting matches of “Move to the center, people!” or the inevitable response from a comedic genius: “Moooo.”
But by the time we got to West Oakland, things started to go south. We stopped inexplicably before the station, and when we finally entered the Transbay Tube, it was officially sardine time. The temperature was rising, and the AirPods to my left decided it was the perfect time to start a high-volume conversation. I recently started using natural deodorant — due to a combo of good branding, peer pressure and breast-cancer risk — and I was feelin’ damp.
We stopped in the tunnel, and a Charlie Brown–teacher announcement honked over the intercom with what seemed like reassurance. A few minutes later, we finally rolled in. I got to my office by 8:47. Overall, not the worst showing from Mr. BART, but my bar is pretty low at this point.
· Door-to-Door Time: 47 minutes
· One-Way Cost: $4.60
· Experience: C+
Tuesday: Driving
I bought my first car — a scratched-up ’07 RAV4 I named Ralph — a year ago, and it changed my life. Driving oneself to the grocery store still feels like the utmost luxury. I never use it during the week, but my boyfriend works at an elementary school in the city and had to bring in a bunch of handsaws on Tuesday (turns out, second-graders love to indiscriminately saw wood for hours), so I bummed a ride.
We left at 7:45. I was lazy about getting Google Maps set up, so it wasn’t until we pulled onto the 80 that my phone happily let us know we were facing “significant delays.” We exchanged a frantic look, but it was too late — we’d merged in. It was just us and the handsaws, in it for the long haul.
By 8:27, we had barely crept onto the bridge. I had a 9:00 a.m. meeting, so I checked my email, only to find out that the woman I was meeting was also stuck on the bridge and had cancelled our chat (small miracles). She reported that three lanes were blocked and that it was “the worst traffic she’s ever seen.” Promising.
Forty-five minutes later, we finally passed the crash site at the Fremont exit, where officials were still processing the scene. Sadly, I later learned the accident was fatal for a 36-year-old motorcyclist.
When all was said and done, I rolled into work half an hour late and feeling carsick.
· Door-to-Door Time: 1 hour and 16 minutes
· Cost One-Way: $6 tolls, ~$1.50 in gas (luckily, I wasn’t on the hook for parking, which can run about $45 for the day in the Financial District)
· Experience: D-
Wednesday: Bus
After Tuesday’s bust, I was optimistic for a better ride courtesy of AC Transit. The F bus comes past my corner, so I was up at 7:30 happily getting ready when I checked real-time departures to find that I had a whopping 48-minute wait till the next bus. I checked again 10 minutes later, and it said 14 minutes. I hit the refresh button, and it said 31 minutes. I was very confused.
I refreshed it one more time to be safe, and all of a sudden, it read, “ARRIVING.” I shoved everything into my bag and ran out the door, makeup half on and shoelaces flying. But as I whipped around the corner, I saw … the 18. In my panic, I had clicked the wrong route. I plodded back the way I came, questioning my intelligence and feeling a little like SpongeBob in the masterpiece of an episode that is “Rock Bottom.”
I finished getting ready and kept a close eye on the correct bus. I left again at 8:15 and got to the stop an indulgent seven minutes in advance.
I was breathing easy until my Clipper card made the dreaded double beep as my balance went into the negative. I looked up at the driver with dread, sure that she was going to kick me off. Instead she said, “Good morning,” thankfully, deciding she really didn’t give a shit.
The ride was uneventful. I sat by the window as we snaked through Oakland and Emeryville and picked up more passengers. Everyone had a seat the entire way; I got a view of the bay; and I got to my office by 9:18.
· Door-to-Door Time: 1 hour and 3 minutes
· One-Way Cost: $5.50
· Experience: B-
The fact that there’s no consistent, modern and affordable way for the Bay Area’s growing number of commuters to get into the city can seem ridiculous, given that we live in a place seen as a bastion of innovation and “user experience.”
Thursday: Casual Carpool
Casual Carpool is a grassroots carpool system in which commuters stand at a designated corner in the East Bay and get picked up by strangers driving to the city who want to use the coveted carpool lane (requiring 3+ people). In short: it’s my mother’s nightmare.
I’ve used Casual Carpool on and off, but the closest stop is the North Berkeley BART station, requiring a 10-minute bike ride.
I left my apartment at 7:40, and by the time I got in line, there were 16 people in line in front of me. Within two minutes, there were six more behind me. The Civic Center pickup line moved quickly, but at 8:00, I was still waiting for my ride to SOMA.
Two minutes later, an aged Lexus RX300 pulled up. The middle-aged woman welcomed me and two others into her car. She was playing jazzy music and the car was clean and had operational seat belts (not always the case), but there was a distinct smell I can only describe as “forgotten pizza slice.”
Casual Carpool’s “etiquette” asks riders to have a dollar handy in case the driver requests it for tolls. At the Berkeley stop, most don’t ask for it, meaning the ride’s totally free. However, that morning, the front-seat passenger was a nicer human than me and offered his $1 proactively. My fellow back-seater and I followed suit.
We flew across the bridge, and I off-boarded at 8:27 in the East Cut, which is apparently what the kids are calling the area around Fremont and Howard these days. I was in the office by 8:40.
· Door-to-Door Time: 1 hour
· One-Way Cost: $1
· Experience: B+
Friday: Ferry
This was the day I was both looking forward to and dreading. There’s no official large-scale ferry service in Berkeley (not since ferries helped carry East Bay commuters in the aftermath of the 1989 earthquake). However, the small-scale private ferry company Tideline started offering rides from the Berkeley Marina to the Harry Potter–sounding Pier 1.5 in San Francisco in 2017. Tideline has a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission, so it’s open to the public and regulated by the Coast Guard, like the major public ferries.
I’ve used Tideline a couple of times after work, usually when my Midwestern parents were in town and I wanted to wow them with proximity to bodies of water. This was my first time as a morning commuter.
I went online a day in advance to reserve a spot (their maximum capacity is 44) and got one on the 8:35 a.m. Friday boat. They also offer a 7:10 a.m. ferry, but I’m not that kind of human.
I left my apartment at 8:08 and enjoyed a 16-minute downhill bike ride to the marina. I passed the Aquatic Park, sparkling in the morning sunshine, and slowed down to do a little bird-watching — a great blue heron stalked slowly through the wildflowers along the shoreline. Not a bad way for a bird nerd to start the day.
At 8:29 I headed to the pier to find nine people already waiting. Three minutes later, 10 others had lined up behind me.
As I got on the small-ish boat, the driver seemed to know most of the riders. The passengers, too, greeted each other like characters from Seahaven in The Truman Show: “You’re looking spiffy today!” and “The sun’s sure saying hello, eh, Jim?” I leaned my bike against the railing and took a seat facing off the back. Apparently, you can also purchase beer and wine, though my fellow commuters kept it nonalcoholic that Friday morning.
The feeling of community is something Tideline’s business development manager, Danielle Weerth, says passengers love about the service.
“It’s their favorite part of the day,” she said. “They don’t think of it as a commute; they think of it as a little community. It’s always the same captain, and they get to know everybody’s names. They make friends. It’s not a cattle car — it’s a bit more dignified.”
At 8:35 we pushed off on time, and I enjoyed the novelty of watching the shore recede on a beautiful day. We passed the Berkeley pier, and I watched a couple of double-crested cormorants drying their wings in the sun as we motored on by.
Once on the SF side, I biked the short but congested 0.7 miles to my office with a grin on my face, by 9:11. I found myself wishing I had gotten there about 30 minutes earlier, however, and that the cost were sustainable for me long term.
· Door-to-Door Time: 57 minutes
· One-Way Cost: $10 (but my ride was free due to a special promotion that week)
· Experience: A
Final Verdict
My conclusion was unclear as I ended the week. Each option has clear pros. BART is consistently the shortest trip (barring major delays). Driving is the most private and door-to-door. AC Transit guarantees me a seat. Casual Carpool is the cheapest. And finally, the ferry is just a really lovely way to start the day.
But they also all have very real drawbacks. BART is often overcrowded and experiences unpredictable delays quite often. Driving yourself isn’t great for the environment, can come with long traffic jams and means high parking costs. AC Transit has irregular arrival times and costs more than BART. Casual Carpool bypasses a lot of traffic via the carpool lane but can still get mired in traffic on the bridge — plus, there’s no return-trip option. (It’s also unregulated “glorified hitchhiking,” according to concerned parents.) The ferry is by far the most expensive and offers limited departure times.
The fact that there’s no consistent, modern and affordable way for the Bay Area’s growing number of commuters to get into the city can seem ridiculous, given that we live in a place seen as a bastion of innovation and “user experience.” And no matter how you choose to get into the city, the already overcrowded commute is likely going to get worse before it gets better.
At the very least, options for getting into the city continue to evolve. The disputed BART Measure RR is still being implemented; the Salesforce Transit Center may one day open again (no one seems to be sure when); Tideline recently added a second SF stop at Pier 52 to serve the isolated Mission Bay, and the Water Emergency Transportation Agency voted last week to start looking into the feasibility of a large-scale ferry service in Berkeley (though the plan has many critics).
For my personal commute experiment, there was no clear winner on all fronts. I’m disappointed that I didn’t find my holy grail: a cheaper, sweat-free way to get to work. The silver lining, though, is that it did teach me about my options. I can now mix and match depending on the day. Morning meeting? Better use BART to get there fastest. Period cramps? AC Transit will have a seat waiting. And if I ever feel like making friends with carpool strangers or getting a little sea wind in my hair, I can do so.
BART will always be there, waiting to take me back.
