The average travel times by BART don't seem all that bad, most large metropolitan cities need an hour by transit anyways. Do people in SF-region really not commute to work from afar?
Travel times from Fremont to the 1st SF stop is about 45 - 50 minutes. Assuming no police activity, medical emergency or BART equipment problem ( you might have heard they have no clue wtf is wrong ? ) .
BART parking is full pretty early ( 7:30 am ) and trains are usually standing room only by the 2nd stop and by the 4th or so its crammed standing.
I am leaving in Oct. I dont plan on paying 3k+ a month ( 1100 sq ft 3BR/2BTH ) with a patch of grass for a yard and having to plan my times to move around commuting hours ( forget heading anywhere nice on the weekend as everyone else is too ). I am 5 minutes away from a BART station by car ( 15 - 20 by bike )
The beach is wonderful, Santa Cruz is nice. the area is great. I have been here 6 years and I am starting to feel like a caged rat ready to bite the other rats for absolutely no reason :)
There are a lot of people living further away from the city commuting in than people that live near BART or caltrain stations.
Anecdotally, half the office (in a small startup) I worked with drove to a BART station, then took BART the rest of the way.
Also, I'd say the sprawl goes pretty far. I grew up in Vacaville, and it was not uncommon to commute into San Francisco. That was 50-something miles away.
I commute from afar: Dublin/Pleasanton (last stop). It takes me 46 min just on the train without delay, plus a 12 min trip to the bart and a 7 minute trip to my work from the SF Montgomery station, so 65 minutes on a perfect day. But, often there are delays which turns my commute time up to an average of about 75 minutes.
This article[1] claims that the "national average commute time is 24.4 minutes" and that "the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont region is also No. 1 for commute distance" in the country.
30 minutes doesn't seem that bad. If you commute to Manhattan, you're looking at least 45 minutes door to door from most directions.
Not to worry, within another 30 years technology will solve the problem and mass transit will achieve great speeds, like 100 mph. The average commuter train/subway now has to be less than 50 mph.
Get on a train in Mountain View and arrive in San Francisco in 15 minutes.
No, do the math. The express trains and subways aren't that fast either. Some are much slower because of frequent stops but that's not the only problem.
BART parking is full pretty early ( 7:30 am ) and trains are usually standing room only by the 2nd stop and by the 4th or so its crammed standing.
I am leaving in Oct. I dont plan on paying 3k+ a month ( 1100 sq ft 3BR/2BTH ) with a patch of grass for a yard and having to plan my times to move around commuting hours ( forget heading anywhere nice on the weekend as everyone else is too ). I am 5 minutes away from a BART station by car ( 15 - 20 by bike )
The beach is wonderful, Santa Cruz is nice. the area is great. I have been here 6 years and I am starting to feel like a caged rat ready to bite the other rats for absolutely no reason :)