[orangecat]

Manhattan is a byword for the unhappy worst-of-both-worlds situation where you have premium luxury housing no one can afford or run-down walk-ups where you're paying thousands a month for a hole-in-the-wall

As opposed to SF? At least in the NYC area you have the option of cheaper housing in Queens or New Jersey and a not-too-horrible commute.

[elvinyung]

What about east bay?

[cbhl]

The bay bridge and transbay tube are pretty much at capacity at rush hour (8-10a, 3-7p).

You can drive over the Bay Bridge in 15-20 minutes if there's no traffic. If there's an accident and a ball game and rush hour, you could easily be stuck on it for 90-120.

[closeparen]

For those who don't know, the Bay Bridge has a relatively thoughtful design where rate-limiting is done at the approaches so that traffic on the bridge itself moves just fine. Then there are dedicated lanes so that buses can jump the queue.

Right now the bottleneck for bus throughput is loading bays at Temporary Transbay Terminal. When the new Transbay Terminal comes online, AC Transit will be able to substantially increase bus throughput over the Bay Bridge.

The Transbay bus system has many distinct routes that go express all the way to SF after making a few local stops in a couple of adjacent neighborhoods. Consequently, it's often faster than BART, especially if you don't live particularly close to your BART stop. Transbay Terminal moving the SF terminus closer to the Market St subway will also make the transfer more pleasant if Embarcadero isn't your stop.