Ask HN: Traffic in Bay Area?

[macguyver]

I'm planning on relocating to the Bay Area this summer and would like to get a feel for the traffic from/to the San Francisco Bay Area from neighboring areas such as Oakland Hills (15.3 miles).

Any suggestions, tips, caveats?

[dmckeon]

Mention your planned commute endpoints and times for better responses. Mention urban driving experience locations for comparisons.

Traffic over the Bay Bridge (I-80W) and its northern approaches (I-80W & I-580E) is quite heavy at typical morning drive times. The rest of the Bay Area is merely very heavy at those times. BART is popular, but parking at BART stations fills early.

Useful traffic resources include Google Maps typical traffic: http://www.google.com/maps/@37.7,-122.26,11z/data=!5m1!1e1 http://www.sigalert.com/ http://traffic.511.org/index http://www.mercurynews.com/mr-roadshow http://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/

[macguyver]

Edit: approximate commute end points Morning departure times: 8am, 10am Evening departure times: 2pm, 6pm, 8pm From Braemar Rd, Oakland, CA 94602, USA To North Point St San Francisco, CA 94109

My urban driving experience locations are: In/out of Washington DC 395N from Northern VA 459N Beltway Richmond/VA Beach I-64 Baltimore Pittsburgh

[carise]

You might want to get a FasTrak (if you haven't already), if you are driving. It sure beats digging for change for the toll. :) Or if you carpool during certain commute hours, you can be in the toll-free lane.