Getting to the SF Amtrak Station?

August 22, 2008 6:35 AM

How do I get from San Francisco airport to the Amtrak station in Emeryville very, very fast?

I am landing in San Francisco International at 8:55 PM tonight. I'd like to catch a 10:12 train from the Amtrak station in Emeryville. I am clueless about the SF area. Is this possible? If so, how? Amtrak has coaches that leave from various areas in the city, but they all depart between 8:50 and 9:10, and none of them leave from the airport. Would a cab be excessively expensive?
Would appreciate any advice from someone who knows the area well. Thanks!

posted by UnnotciedTypo to travel & transportation (22 comments total)

Probably the best thing to do is take BART from the airport to West Oakland, and a cab from there.
posted by kittyprecious at 6:55 AM on August 22, 2008

Saftest bet would be a cab. BART (bart.gov) might take too long. Cab will likely be 70 usd.
posted by zia at 6:57 AM on August 22, 2008

You can look up the BART schedule on the BART website. A cab will take roughly 30 minutes.
posted by zia at 6:58 AM on August 22, 2008

Will you be checking any luggage? If so, you probably won't make it out of the airport until 9:40 or later. I don't remember SFO being particularly timely in that department.
posted by politikitty at 7:04 AM on August 22, 2008

I really don't think you're going to make it. I've done this link before. The BART trains leave from SFO and go to MacArthur (closest to Emeryville), but the ride is almost as long as your window there and once you get to MacArthur, the BART and Amtrak stations are some distance from one another across town. You'd do better trying to catch the train at Richmond, but I doubt you'd make that, either.

Your best hope would be a cab, which would be INSANELY expensive (20+ miles in a cab is probably on the order of $100), might involve a toll to get across the Bay Bridge (not sure of that) and still unlikely to get you there in time if there's any traffic.
posted by el_lupino at 7:04 AM on August 22, 2008

There's no toll going eastbound on the Bay Bridge. Traffic is relatively light that time of the evening, but it will be expensive.
posted by kittyprecious at 7:10 AM on August 22, 2008

You wont make it with BART. It takes about an hour to get across the Bay thanks to the wierd inland curve that BART does on the peninsula. A 9:09 train (which you wont make unless the plane lands early) would get you to MacArthur at 9:57pm and you still have to catch a cab!

Your best/only hope is a cab. But you also have to get lucky there. You have to find a cabbie that knows how to drive and also knows exactly where you're going. Then, also, its 9pm on a Friday night and there will be light traffic since the after-work traffic has settled down and the weekender traffic is not in full force. So you may get lucky there. Yeah, about half an hour drive. No, you dont have to pay a toll to get across the Bay Bridge.
posted by vacapinta at 7:15 AM on August 22, 2008

Cab's the only thing I can think of that would offer any chance. BART won't cut it.

I think you're likely to make it if your plane is prompt and you don't have to wait for checked baggage (and there are no accidents on the bridge or other major backups.) I'd expect it to be around $80. You might want to have directions on you in case your SFO cabbie isn't familiar with Emeryville.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 7:36 AM on August 22, 2008

one thing to consider is that if your train does not originate in emeryville there is a good chance that it will be late -- possibly giving you some extra time. If the train starts there, however, no such luck.
posted by mercredi at 7:38 AM on August 22, 2008

There's no toll going eastbound on the Bay Bridge. Traffic is relatively light that time of the evening, but it will be expensive.

This is true, but a cab that you take from SF will often tack on the toll they have to pay when returning. So don't be surprised by that. I think 70/80 USD is about accurate. It's about $30-40 from the Mission. Remember the tip. ASK FIRST if the cabbie will take you to the Emeryville Train station before getting settled in. They may refuse.

As far as making it? You are cutting it very, very, close. I don't think I'd even try that if I had a scheduled ride. On the up side, there's no scheduled lane closures on the bridge tonight and traffic is pretty light around that time, so hey, if you're feeling lucky enough to put 70-80 dollars down on a cab ride, go for it. If you're in a cab at 9 pointed towards Emeryville, you'll probably make it, because cabbies drive like nutballs on speed around here. If you've got luggage, I'd probably forget about it. Keep in mind you also want to try to leave enough time to buy a ticket in the station -- otherwise Amtrak will charge you a 50% surcharge (sometimes you can talk your way out of this, though). Your cabbie should *know* where the emeryville station is, but I'd study up a map to make sure *you* know where it is. There's no way BART is going to work for you that late at tnight.

If you're going somewhere that can wait a day, I'd take that 70-80 dollars over to priceline or whatever and get a hotel. There's nothing worse than pulling up to an Amtrak station only to watch the train pulling out (I've done it at least 5 or six times). If you get that close, you can probably catch it by racing to Berkeley (if you're going North), or to Jack London (if you're going South -- although in which case you should probably just catch it at Jack London -- it's slightly closer to SF and easier to get to from the freeway, imho).


one thing to consider is that if your train does not originate in emeryville there is a good chance that it will be late

I would put this at a *slim* chance. Over the last year or so, I took the train weekly, and found that they ran late maybe 1 out of 5 times or so at the most; usually only due to accident or bad scheduling by Union Pacific.
posted by fishfucker at 7:56 AM on August 22, 2008

You definitely have a better chance of making it (by cab) if you don't check luggage.
posted by gt2 at 8:06 AM on August 22, 2008

Nthing the suggestion not to check luggage if you really want to try to do this...for me, it's not uncommon to wait 40 minutes in the baggage claim area after my flight lands. From my casual observations, it seems that SFO is a lot worse than many other airports in this department - but maybe it's my bias.

Flights into SFO also routinely experience delays from fog. Again, you can be delayed at any airport for weather-related reasons, but this seems to happen at least every fourth flight or so for me. If you're late getting in at all this will move from the realm of probably-not-going-to-work to move-to-plan-b.
posted by handful of rain at 8:10 AM on August 22, 2008

By the way, if you don't know the area - SFO airport is about 20 minutes south of San Francisco downtown by car (with no traffic). Emeryville is about 15 minutes east of downtown San Francisco on the other side of the bay by car (you have to cross the Bay Bridge).
posted by gt2 at 8:11 AM on August 22, 2008

I put your route into the 511 Transit planner, and it say it's possible to arrive at the Amtrak at 10:10, but that's assuming that your flight gets into SFO early or on time and you're able to catch (run!) the 9:09 BART train leaving SFO (no checked luggage is crucial), and then everything else works perfectly. But if one leg of this is delayed you're screwed. On the other hand, I don't know where your Amtrak train is going, but since once you get on BART it's pretty fast, you might try meeting it at one of its next stop after Emeryville. For instance if it goes through Berkeley, find out what time it departs Berkeley. I've gotten onto the Amtrak in Emeryville, ridden to the 3 minutes to the Berkeley stop, and then sat there for 15 minutes till we took off north.

If you have the money, you could getting a cab and telling the driver there's a fat tip in it for him if he gets you there on time.

If you have internet access you can use the 511 site (or dial 511 on a phone) for fairly accurate traffic and transit information. In a cab you'll be crossing the Bay Bridge going east, and accidents can easily take that thing to a crawl.
posted by tula at 9:13 AM on August 22, 2008

Agreed that the only way you're going to be able to do this is by car.

But if you're going to spend $75 for a metered cab (and you will), you'd be better off arranging a towncar or other executive transport. The driver will know where he's going, and will meet you by the escalator at SFO, so you won't have to wait at the cab stand with the weekend-tourists.
posted by toxic at 9:35 AM on August 22, 2008

There are no cabs at West Oakland. They won't even go there if you call them.

I looked into catching the train at Richmond, but it looks like the train you're on doesn't stop there -- its next stop north of Emeryville is Martinez. Looks like you can still buy your Amtrak ticket online, which I would do if you can.

I agree with the consensus that a cab directly from SFO is almost the only way to get there. On preview, I tried the trip planner. Mine showed the earliest arrival was 10:24 (that was Macarthur + the Emery-Go-Round) and the one after that was 10:37 (interestingly, Bart to W.Oak, and AC Transit bus 19 north from there). (I don't know how Tula got a possible 10:10 arrival.)

Ditto that you should really know where the Amtrak station is. It's at the Powell St. offramp, so after the bridge, you go left at the split onto 80E/580W, then get over to the right, right away, to take the next exit -- Powell St. Go right off the off-ramp. Then it gets tricky. Here's what Google Maps shows to do. See all that weird round-the-block stuff at the end? That's because Powell is a bridge over the railroad tracks around that area, so not all streets are accessible from Powell. If you're so down to the wire that saving 3-5 minutes would help, you might have the cab turn left on Christie, right on Shellmound St. (heading east), and then left on Shellmound St. (heading north). In the parking lot to your right there is a pedestrian bridge over the tracks that goes directly to the Amtrak Station. Just past the Woodfin Hotel, at the entrance to the enormous parking lot, look diagonally ahead and to your right, and you can spot the tower for the pedestrian bridge. So, then you'll be doing more like this (except the cab can drive you to the far side of the parking lot -- see that white square on the aerial imagery? that's the tower.)

Also, if you try this and it doesn't work out, you could always stay in one of the hotels right nearby. (I'd actually recommend not choosing Woodfin if you care about labor rights -- they weren't paying workers the local minimum wage, so their workers were striking, and in retaliation, they fired a couple.)

If you do go the BART route, I'd make sure to have cash on hand to buy the ticket quickly. Looks like the fare is just under $6. You don't want to be dealing with having to break a twenty or pulling out a credit card and typing in your PIN.
posted by salvia at 9:44 AM on August 22, 2008 [1 favorite]

Cab is going to be the fastest, you should be able to make it in 35-40 minutes at that time of night.

The alternative is BART to Ashby station, then a cab from there. The local free Emeryville bus doesn't run at that hour I don't think. You'd be cutting it close with this but if you hit the right train you might make it.
posted by iamabot at 11:33 AM on August 22, 2008

This schedule is far too tight - you're relying on:

- the plane arriving on time (P=.5, probability of success)
- baggage handlers being timely (P=.2)
- an SF cabby knowing Emeryville (P=.2)
- no traffic problems between SFO and Emeryville (P=.8)

My estimate is that you have a .5 * .2 * .2 * .8 =a teeny tiny smidgen of a chance of making it.

I'd try switching my flight - either an earlier SFO arrival or else a flight to OAK.
posted by zippy at 12:32 PM on August 22, 2008

So, dude -- did you make it?
posted by Zed_Lopez at 12:45 AM on August 25, 2008

Thanks for the great answers, guys. I've been traveling for the past few days... Based on people's advice, I stayed overnight and caught a train the next day (I was heading up to Mount Shasta, and decided to go up by bus from Sacramento, instead of the overnight train). Having now done the route, I think I can say that I would not likely have made it, so I have been saved a considerable headache.
posted by UnnotciedTypo at 7:24 PM on August 25, 2008

Hope you had fun in Shasta!
posted by salvia at 12:19 AM on August 26, 2008

For future reference, I did a SFO (domestic terminal) to Jack London (where I live) round-trip this morning at around 4am-ish* and was back before 5, so with no traffic (and I mean absolutely no traffic -- it was dead out there), it's about 25-30 min each way. This was traveling pretty close to the speed limit (I was too sleepy to drive fast). It's likely I'll be doing the same route again this saturday eve, so if I remember I'll stop back and drop in another average time.



Hope you enjoyed your trip!
posted by fishfucker at 9:59 PM on August 26, 2008