Bay Area Public Transportation a mess (San Jose, San Francisco: coupon, how much, find a job)

[rcb4118]

So I just recently moved here from the east coast. I lived in NYC for a time where the public transportation was extremely easy and straight forward. Not to mention affordable.

I'm 23 and currently live in San Jose (without a car) and am trying to move into SF, SSF or Daly City. Seeing as how easy Caltrain is to get into the city I decided I would suck it up and find a job in the city and just commute from SJ to SF everyday. That was until I started looking at prices and fine print for all the transportation. Monthly Caltrain to SF would be about $230. Then I would have to pay $74 for monthly BART/MUNI. And even that has stipulations and fine print (I can't use outside of SF). So $304 just to travel to work per month. It's just way more hassle than its worth and I'm shocked at how much of a mess it is. Especially considering it's the bay area.

I really love the city though and I'm still contemplating throwing my money away at these trains until I find a place. Now my question to you guys with any experience in this is do employers in the city typically offer discounted or free passes for employees? And are there any tricks I don't see? Any way to get an all access BART/Clipper pass?

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated I'm just trying to make my dreams happen.

(this is my first post, but I've stalked these forums for quite some time learning)

[mayorhaggar]

a) Caltrain (and to a lesser extent BART) is a commuter rail line that serves suburban areas along about what, 50 miles of tracks? Compare that to suburban lines like LIRR and Metro-North in the NYC area (which basically serve the same purpose) and you'll find some high prices there too for monthly passes.
b) At least you can get monthly passes for Caltrain, there really should be ones for BART.
c) Yes it is annoying that there are so many separate transit agencies in the Bay Area, and each one has a completely different and incompatible pricing system, so you can get a pass for more than one agency. They boast about how you can have money withdrawn from your Clipper card to ride any agency, but the fact that you can't just have one monthly pass means you get nickel and dimed a lot, especially if you have to regularly commute by more than one agency.
d) Keep in mind that really only SF, Oakland and Berkeley are particularly liveable without a car. If you're fussing about San Jose not having as good public transit as NYC (or SF) then that is silly because you're talking about a largely suburban area that is 50 miles from the nearest walkable city.
e) some employers provide transit benefits, something common is Commuter Checks (not sure if they still do those) where you basically get a coupon worth $50 or whatever and you can use that towards buying a monthly pass at agencies that accept them. This kinda hoses people who have to drive to work (since you can't exactly use the Commuter Check at Chevron) so another option is for you to use pre-tax dollars for commuter expenses--you tell the government you spend $200 a month on transit, so you're basically exempt from any income taxes on that $200 each month. It's not much but it does add up, and at least everyone can use it, but it does hose people who are spending like $80 a month on Muni passes, since they weren't paying much tax on $80 anyway.

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by rcb4118

So I just recently moved here from the east coast. I lived in NYC for a time where the public transportation was extremely easy and straight forward. Not to mention affordable.

I'm 23 and currently live in San Jose (without a car) and am trying to move into SF, SSF or Daly City. Seeing as how easy Caltrain is to get into the city I decided I would suck it up and find a job in the city and just commute from SJ to SF everyday. That was until I started looking at prices and fine print for all the transportation. Monthly Caltrain to SF would be about $230. Then I would have to pay $74 for monthly BART/MUNI. And even that has stipulations and fine print (I can't use outside of SF). So $304 just to travel to work per month.

First, welcome to the Bay Area (and City-Data).

Regarding transit, one thing to remember is that SF to SJ, while in the same general metro/region, is still a far distance (45-50 miles). Imagine trying to take a train out of NYC 45-50 miles in any direction...in CT, this would put you somewhere just past Stamford; in NJ this would put you somewhere around South Brunswick; on Long Island this would put you somewhere around Brentwood/Islip. In other words, you'd be in the middle of low-density suburbia, and you would have similar transit options (mainly, a commuter train, which is what Caltrain is).

With this in mind, in NYC to make a similar commute, you would actually be spending a bit more ($315 for monthly pass on Metro North, $334 for monthly pass on LIRR). Then, on top of that, you'd still need a metro card for the subway/buses in NYC proper ($102, but going up to $112 in March). Total cost for a similar commute would be ~$417 - $446. Compare this to the Caltrain + MUNI cost of about $378. Comparable, but the Bay Area commute is cheaper. NYC transit options are not more affordable.

Also, the MUNI pass is comparable to the MTA metro card for NYC subways and buses. Just like you can't use that outside of NYC, you can't use the MUNI card outside of SF. In SF, you can use a Clipper card to merge your monthly Caltrain pass and the MUNI monthly pass onto one physical card.

Keep in mind, if you're just commuting between SF and SJ, you will not need a BART card (this saves a lot of money). You could just keep some money on a BART card in your wallet or on your clipper card when you need to use it, though (e.g. for a trip to Berkeley or Oakland).

Originally Posted by rcb4118

It's just way more hassle than its worth and I'm shocked at how much of a mess it is. Especially considering it's the bay area.

I think the main thing that gets most people when they move here is that there isn't "one place" where all of the jobs are, like in NYC. If you move here from a more traditional major city, like NYC/Boston/Chicago, you might have an expectation that taking transit to work should be an easy and fluid process. In the Bay Area people work and commute all over the place. A very large amount commute into SF daily (just like all of those people coming into NYC for work), but there are also a lot of people that commute to the peninsula or the south bay for work. Very rarely will you see someone commuting from NYC to some random suburb on long island, in CT, or in NJ for work.

When you consider this, you begin to realize that the Bay Area is a pretty big region, and it makes more sense as to why transit is spread out the way it is. The transit options could of course be a lot better (there are many things that are lacking/annoying about transit here), but it isn't that bad (most metros don't even give you the option when you're in the suburban areas). As well, most of the inner bay area cities were built up in the early 20th century and are pretty dense/walkable, so biking/walking can be pretty easy (compared to the average suburban area in the U.S., including many NYC suburban areas).

Originally Posted by rcb4118

I really love the city though and I'm still contemplating throwing my money away at these trains until I find a place. Now my question to you guys with any experience in this is do employers in the city typically offer discounted or free passes for employees? And are there any tricks I don't see? Any way to get an all access BART/Clipper pass?

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated I'm just trying to make my dreams happen.

(this is my first post, but I've stalked these forums for quite some time learning)

The Bay Area is a pretty progressive and forward-thinking place, and for this reason many employers offer passes/discounts for transit. I've never heard of a true BART monthly pass, but I know there was a discount if you bought BART discount tickets (discount was small). I've heard these are being phased out, though. Many companies located along the peninsula offer Caltrain discounts/free passes. At Stanford (where I work), we get free unlimited Caltrain (great perk). It, obviously, varies by company, so you should check with your employer on what they offer.

Also, just a small recommendation for you: If I were you, I'd try to move closer to SF. There's no reason you should have to deal with such a long commute from SJ to SF every day if you don't have to. There are many nice towns along the peninsula (some cheaper, some (most) more expensive than SJ) that have nice downtowns and offer many amenities within walkable areas. Also, the East Bay has some really cool areas that are also much more affordable (e.g. Berkley and Oakland), so that is definitely worth a look if you're going to be working in SF. And if you want a lifestyle more similar to NYC, definitely focus on SF, Oakland, and Berkley. You'll find the density, the transit and the neighborhood options in these areas to be more in line with NYC and the immediate areas surrounding it.

[DarkWolf]

Most New Yorkers do not leave the city , so they don't know how expensive the outer regional rail is... There are about 1 million Transit commuters who commute over 40 miles in this region thats expected to climb to 2.5 million by the end of the decade. Theres a growing amount who commute over 100 miles to NYC thanks to the faster rail... The Bay Area has various networks in each city and Regional Rail connects , its the same in the Northeast....

[pch1013]

Or you could just do what I do and ride a motorcycle.

[rkwalton]

I'd say suck it up for the time being. I have NO idea why you moved from NYC to San Jose without getting yourself some sort of transportation. San Jose is not a mass transit sort of city. CalTrain is not the MTA. Like others have said, it's more like the LIRR and Metro-North and those trains aren't cheap. The closest thing to NYC is the East Bay to San Francisco via BART which is similar to the PATH lines of NJ to Manhattan.

As @mayorhaggar says you can live car free in Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco without any major pain. However, BART runs its last trains at midnight, so you'd better be ready to plan around that. I lived in Berkeley for a year and it was doable. However, I work for myself and don't have to deal with a commute, ever.

For now, you're in San Jose, so just plan on moving or on getting yourself a way to get around until you can move closer.

[Chava61]

As already said, in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland one can rely on mass transit. If one lives walking distance from a BART train station, one can rely on it to get in and out of San Francisco (like commuter rail in the NYC area) but one usually still needs some way to get around whichever town one chooses to live at.

[jade408]

There are lots of walkable areas well served by inter-city and intra-city transit in Oakland and Berkeley. There are a few walkable areas in San Jose but it us hard to get out or across town via transit.


I am on my phone, please forgive the typos.