TRANSIT REPORT: San Francisco, California

(Note: Fares updated July, 2021 and face masks are required on all public transit - Ed)

San Francisco is California’s most transit oriented city. It’s the nerve center of Northern California and many regional transportation systems converge here. The city itself is served mainly by Muni (San Francisco Municipal Railroad) and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) with robust commuter rail service provided by CalTrain. Regional operators Golden Gate Transit and AC Transit also provide bus service into the city from points beyond. A number of ferry operators also provide commuter service across the bay into San Francisco proper. More than a dozen different operators and agencies also provide bus and rail service outside of the city to points around the bay.

MUNI - The city’s main transit provider runs a system of buses, trolleys, and cable cars.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

Steve Morgan under CC-BY-SA license

BUSES – Buses run just about everywhere in the city and it seems like you’re never more than a block or two from a line. There are regular fuel powered buses along with overhead wire electrified trolley buses. All vehicles in the MUNI bus fleet are now accessible. Click the following link for a route map.

Bus fares are $3, $1.25 for disabled and seniors. Transfers are free and can be used for two more trip, including returning to your original destination as long as you do it before it expires (120 minutes from original issue).

TROLLEYS – The trolley system here (not to be confused with the cable cars) runs down Market Street underground and to points beyond above ground. Historic trolleys…using restored antique trolley cars from around the world…run above ground on Market Street continuing on to Fisherman’s Wharf. All stations along Market Street are wheelchair accessible, both above and below ground. The historic streetcars are mostly accessible and stops either have ramps or embedded lifts that will raise your wheelchair up to door level when the car approaches. The T line is completely accessible, the J, K, L, M, and N lines are wheelchair accessible at designated stops only. See this link for a list and compare with this route map to see if your destination is served. If it can’t be done by trolley, chances are you can do it via the bus system.

Trolley fares are the same as the bus fares.

CABLE CARS – These are rolling historical landmarks and are not wheelchair accessible. If you do want to ride one, you’ll need to leave your chair behind. If you can walk a little bit, you can probably board. The cost is $8.

Visitors can purchase 1, 3, and 7 day passes that are good for unlimited rides on the entire system, including cable cars. The costs are $24, $36, and $46 respectively and are sold at various outlets throughout the city and the airport. Click the link to find sales locations.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia

Jon 'ShakataGaNai' Davis under CC-BY-SA license

BART is a heavy-rail system that works as commuter rail from points in the East Bay and the airport. It runs as a subway under Market Street. All lines converge here from Millbrae and the airport in the south and Fremont, Dublin/Pleasanton, Pittsburgh, and Richmond in the East Bay. The complete system and all stations are wheelchair accessible. Fares are distance based and vary, you can check this calculator to see how much your ride will cost. All BART fares are now paid via a Clipper Card, a one-time fee of $3 is required to buy one.

One word of concern about MUNI and BART – our experience with several of their station employees and drivers were the worst encounters we’ve ever had from transit employees that included being yelled at for a) asking a question, b) going the wrong way, and c) not knowing the name of the stop we wanted to get off at. Be prepared, they may get you where you’re going but not always with a smile.

CALTRAIN is a commuter rail line that runs along the West Bay peninsula from San Jose, and Gilroy just a little bit, to the San Francisco station just a few blocks south of Market Street. There are stations along the way in places like Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Redwood City, San Mateo, and South San Francisco. The passenger cars are double-deckers with wheelchairs riding on the bottom level. Each station has a wheelchair ramp built into the platform, chair users should wait on top to board the train…the conductor will deploy a ramp to get you in. Fares are distance based from a low of $3.75 one-way for one zone to a high of $15 for six zones. A day pass is available for twice the amount of a one-way ticket, disabled and senior riders pay a little less than half price.

FERRIES are operated by several companies and cruise into the city from Alameda, Oakland, Vallejo, Tiburon, and Sausalito. Fares start at $5.75 and disabled fares start at $2.75. All are wheelchair accessible.

AC Transit runs buses from Oakland and the East Bay and Golden Gate Transit from Marin County. All buses are wheelchair accessible.

A multitude of agencies run buses, trains, and ferries to other parts of the bay area that don’t come into San Francisco. For complete information about these agencies, plus the ferries and commuter buses, go to transit.511.org for complete transit information for the area.

San Francisco is one of the world’s premiere travel destinations and is very easy to see in a wheelchair. Have fun.


-Darryl
Copyright 2010 – Darryl Musick

A Golden Journey Without Leaving Home: The Gold Line Crawl

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) It used to be you couldn't get around the Los Angeles area without a car but that's changing. Ever since the days of Tom Bradley, city leaders have been investing in transit...in fits and starts...and creating a new network of railed, public transit.

We're now starting to get to the sweet spot in the results of all that work and billions of dollars worth of investment. The city's rail lines span just over a hundred miles, not counting the regional trains of Metrolink and the express bus lines of the orange and silver lines.

Watch The Video!

Recently, the latest extension of the Gold Line opened up in our area of the eastern San Gabriel Valley (another extension of the Expo Line has also opened and you can go from downtown Los Angeles to the Santa Monica Pier). Originally, this line went from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles and now has been expanded to run from the Azusa/Glendora city line in the northeast to the edge of Montebello in East L.A. to the south.

I've been commuting on it daily to work, now I'm taking a day to bring Letty and Tim along to do a little exploring.

It's around 45 minutes from our start at the City of Hope in Duarte to the Little Tokyo/Arts District station one stop beyond Union Station. To get a little fortification for our journey, we start off with a little pie and coffee at the Pie Hole, a small coffee shop in the Arts District.

This former industrial area and extension of Skid Row attracted a lot of artists with it's low rents and large lofts where they could experiment and create away from the attention of Hollywood and downtown.  Those days are gone and now it's a gentrified hot spot of Los Angeles. 

While we're here, we'll take in a little tasting session at one of the microbreweries here, Angel City Brewery on the corner of Alameda and 4th Streets.  We taste a variety of their beers and ales. Some are good, some are a bit more average.

Moving on, we head a couple of blocks east to Little Tokyo. This historically Japanese neighborhood is full of sushi bars, kimono shops, Japanese grocery stores, and restaurants.

Today, we're coming here because my wife is a big fan of Japanese knitting and crochet books, which she painstaking translates into working patterns.  She finds these at the Kinokuniya Book Store in Weller Court, next to the Little Tokyo Doubletree Hotel.

A DASH bus takes us to downtown's other Asian enclave, Chinatown. Just north of the Hollywood freeway, in the area around Broadway and Hill Streets, Chinatown is another historical neighborhood that was originally Italian. When Union Station displaced the original Chinatown when it was built, the neighborhood moved a few blocks north to its current location.

A Shaolin festival is going on today with booths on meditation, books, musicians, and souvenirs.

The main stage features kung fu demonstrations by pint-sized students of local schools.

Around the corner on Broadway, the Phoenix Bakery has been turning out very good sweets for over 80 years.

The owner takes pity on me and gives me some free samples of the sugar butterflies, just being finished. They are outstanding.

Of course, that leads to me buying a box to take home along with the almond cookies my wife bought.

Chinatown has it's own Gold Line Station so we climb back onboard for the last leg of our trip to the eastern end in Azusa.

From the Azusa station, it's a short walk south until we hear Max yell out, "it's been a long time, where you been? I was about to call your house."

Mexican food fans in this neighborhood know that this is the call to come sip some of the state's finest margaritas and eat some fantastic food at Max's Mexican Cuisine.

We're on the train, so we'll take two. Why not?!?

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

FIELDS OF DREAMS - PETCO Park, San Diego, California

Today, our most popular post ever on the blog.  Yes, ever...no, I don't know why...but here's an updated look at San Diego's Petco Park.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

Nehrams 2020 under CC-BY-SA license

Dropping a notch to #13 on our list of Major League Stadiums, Petco Park is the home of the San Diego Padres who moved here from Qualcomm Stadium (formerly Jack Murphy Stadium) in 2004.  It is a downtown stadium in the middle of the Gaslamp District, San Diego’s dining and entertainment heart, and across the street from the convention center.  It is one block away from the ocean. 

Here are the stats:

Year opened:  2004

Surface: Grass

Construction cost: $450 million

Capacity: 42,445

Field dimensions: Left field – 367 ft.; left center – 390 ft*.; Center field – 396 ft.; right center – 391 ft.*; Right field – 382 ft.

Home team: San Diego Padres (National League, MLB) 2004 – present

Events attended: One game

*Note: field dimensions with the asterix were moved in for the 2013 season to make the park more hitter friendly.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

hober under CC-BY-SA license

Petco was incorporated into the downtown redevelopment zone and preserves a historic building built into the left field stands, the Western Metal Supply building which was declared a historical building during the early phase of the stadium development.  This delayed the project (along with political issues – San Diego is known for being very tight with the tax buck) two years.  Eventually, it was just incorporated into the stadium.  It now houses a restaurant, the gift shop, and the team’s offices along with a few seats for the fans.

It’s a block from the ocean but faces the other direction.  This is because batters would be looking into the setting sun if it faced the beautiful ocean view.  The view started looking out over a construction zone but is in the process of being developed.

Tony Gwynn had his number retired the day we were there

Wheelchair seating abounds at all levels and a quick call to the team’s office can take care of you and your companion’s needs.  We had no trouble at all getting a wheelchair and two companion seats, plus four more seats for my sister’s family in the adjacent row.  The Padres practice dynamic ticket pricing.  That means prices fluctuate according to demand.  This year's Padres don't seem to be a team that would be in such high demand but a quick check on their site shows prices running from $10 to over $100. Call (619) 795-5005 for help with accessible seating.

The outfield is a park on non-game days.  During a game, it’s a large grassy area to spread a picnic blanket on.  A cheap standing room only ticket gets you access here.  There’s also a sand pit at the center field wall for the kids to play in.  It’s called “The Beach” but since the park is named after a pet shop, I call it “The Litter Box.”

Food here is on the slightly-better than mediocre side.  There’s a good variety of food but most of it is pretty bland.  I’ve been told that the food on the club level is excellent, but that is off-limits to most ticket holders.  Draft beer selection is excellent.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

cooljuno411 under CC-BY-SA license

In the adjacent Gaslamp area, there are a number of mostly pricy restaurants where you can get a pre-game or post-game meal.  A few nearby bars also have cheap beer deals you can take advantage of before the game.  We like to take advantage of this to ease the budget once inside the stadium.

The staff here is very friendly and helpful.  The team’s web site, though, makes it seem that there is scarce parking in the area and will sell you distant parking from the stadium for some pretty hefty prices where you can take a shuttle to the park.  We found a non-affiliated parking structure just across from the third base entrance where $10 got us 24 hours of parking.  There was plenty to go around too.

Transit access is among the best we’ve seen.  The accessible San Diego Trolley has two stations at the stadium.  If you’re coming from up north, say Orange County or Los Angeles, it’s easy to take Amtrak’s Surfliner to San Diego, then the trolley from there to the stadium.

Many hotels are in the neighborhood and around trolley stations further out such as Mission Valley.  The best, if you can get a good rate, is the Omni San Diego Hotel which is connected to the stadium via a foot bridge and has its own entrance into the park.  We did get a $99 rate there but that’s not the usual price.

Before he managed the Padres, Bud Black was the pitching coach with the Angels.  

Here he is with Darryl and Tim along with former Angel utility player, Jeff Davanon.

The team is doing miserably this year under the direction of manager Bud Black.  Between them and the Dodgers, it's hard to say who's the worst team in the division right now.

All in all, a good park.  In the middle of the pack, average but just above mediocre.  It doesn’t capture my spirit like PNC Park or the old Yankee Stadium, but it’s still well above other stadiums on the west coast.  I’d say it’s second in the west only to AT&T Park in San Francisco.
 

-Darryl

Copyright 2010-Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved
Updated for 2013

TRANSIT REPORT: Cleveland, Ohio

Picture Courtesy of Wikimedia

Hillrhpc under CC-BY-SA license

The main transit agency in Cleveland is the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA). They run a system of buses, heavy rail, and light rail (trolley).

BUSES

Cleveland now runs a 100% wheelchair accessible bus system. The bus system covers most of the area. There is also a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) that runs in its own dedicated lane from Windemere to Tower City called the HealthLine. This is similar to Kansas City’s MAX service.  You can get a route map here.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

Hillrhpc under CC-BY-SA license

The Red Line

The Red Line is Cleveland’s heavy rail system, think like a subway. It runs from the airport to Windemere, northeast of downtown. Only 12 of the line’s 18 stations are barrier free. Most of the inaccessible stations are located in the central part of the city. You can access Indians and Cavalier games from the Tower City station via an accessible walkway.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

Hillrhpc under CC-BY-SA license

Blue and Green Lines

Cleveland’s light rail system runs along the waterfront and can be used to visit the Browns’ stadium, the Flats (lots of dining options), and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Both lines serve this area and, with the exception of the Amtrak stop, all waterfront stations are accessible. The Blue Line extends to Warrensville. Only the Shaker Square and Warrensville stations are accessible once the line goes east of Tower City. The Red Line culminates at the Green Station. Only that station and Shaker Square are accessible east of Tower City.

You can get a map of the rail system here.

Downtown Trolley

Two wheelchair accessible bus shuttle services serve the downtown area at 10 minute intervals between 7am and 7pm Monday through Friday. The service is free.

The fare for Cleveland’s transit options is $2.25 for the base fare. Disabled and seniors ride for a dollar.

-Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick