Next week, I’m planning to visit my nieces and nephew in New York City. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. For those not familiar with distances between U.S. cities there are about 3000 miles (4,800 km) between NYC and S.F. I plan to fly there. Previously, I worked out all of my travel arrangements except for getting from my home to San Francisco Airport. I left that task for today.
My main goal was to find a low cost, low impact on the environment, high probability way of getting to the airport on time. Although the politicians claimed credit for interconnecting various public transportation systems between where I live and the airport the reality is a bit different from the claims and explains why people in the area take more expensive less environmentally friendly ways to the airport. I list the options I discovered in the following table. (You may need to scroll to the table. I need to track down this issue in the style sheet).
1. Cost = $10 Gas + $240 Parking = $250
2. Cost = $10 Gas + $10 Buy friend lunch = $20
3. Cost = $5.75 Public Transport + $10 lunch = $15.75
Although not listed above there is a bus that goes to the airport. However, it had a big disadvantage that made it unusable. Unfortunately, there is a rule that one is not allowed to take luggage on the bus that goes to the airport. Since you may not believe this, here is a link to the page that states the rule: http://www.samtrans.com/pdf/Schedules/Route_KX_04-12-09.pdf. If you scroll down about half way you will see the “luggage restriction”.
I chose to have a friend drop me off at the train station on his way to work. This method has the advantage of having a low environmental impact relative to the other choices, is inexpensive, and although it takes 100 minutes (more than twice as much as driving) it is an hour less in duration then the full public transportation method. Although my friend will help me bypass the buses, I have to transfer between trains twice before getting to the airport. The end-to-end public transportation method has the following steps:
1. Walking 15 minutes to closest bus stopMy main goal was to find a low cost, low impact on the environment, high probability way of getting to the airport on time. Although the politicians claimed credit for interconnecting various public transportation systems between where I live and the airport the reality is a bit different from the claims and explains why people in the area take more expensive less environmentally friendly ways to the airport. I list the options I discovered in the following table. (You may need to scroll to the table. I need to track down this issue in the style sheet).
| Method | Travel Time (min) | Cost ($) | On Time Probability | Environmental Impact |
| Drive Self1 | 40 | 250 | High | High |
| Friend Drives2 | 40 | 20 | High | High |
| End-2-End Public Transport | 160 | 9.25 | Low | Low |
| Friend Drops me at the train on way to work3 | 100 | 15.75 | Medium | Low |
| Cab | 40 | 80 | High | High |
| Shared Van | 80 | 50 | Medium | Medium |
1. Cost = $10 Gas + $240 Parking = $250
2. Cost = $10 Gas + $10 Buy friend lunch = $20
3. Cost = $5.75 Public Transport + $10 lunch = $15.75
Although not listed above there is a bus that goes to the airport. However, it had a big disadvantage that made it unusable. Unfortunately, there is a rule that one is not allowed to take luggage on the bus that goes to the airport. Since you may not believe this, here is a link to the page that states the rule: http://www.samtrans.com/pdf/Schedules/Route_KX_04-12-09.pdf. If you scroll down about half way you will see the “luggage restriction”.
I chose to have a friend drop me off at the train station on his way to work. This method has the advantage of having a low environmental impact relative to the other choices, is inexpensive, and although it takes 100 minutes (more than twice as much as driving) it is an hour less in duration then the full public transportation method. Although my friend will help me bypass the buses, I have to transfer between trains twice before getting to the airport. The end-to-end public transportation method has the following steps:
2. Bus to Light Rail
3. Light Rail to train
4. First transfer
5. Second Transfer
6. Airport
I cannot imagine anyone using this method unless they were truly desperate or a hardcore environmental zealot. If this experience is generally true of public transportation in the U.S. then we are in for some challenges trying to get people to adopt these methods for getting to places.
Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved Rob Dorfman
Welcome to the blogging world! Much as public transportation sounds inconvenient to you, I wish we had better public transportation here. It would be nice to have a cheaper way of getting from point a to point b within town, especially during the winter. Alas, we are very limited here.
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