getting around san francisco---any UCSF residents???

[BareFoot]

hi,

will be starting residency in SF...do I absolutely need a car? i want to live next to UCSF...how do you guys get to SFGH without a car (esp if you need to get there early since shuttle does not run until 6AM)? is there an easy bike route? or bus route from UCSF to SFGH? or will have have to buy a car.......

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[beyond all hope]

SF is not really doable by public transportation alone. You may commute to work by public transit, but you will hate life if you don't have a car to get away on your free days, go shopping, buy stuff, etc.

I lived for years in the Bay Area without a car, but it's a pain sometimes. You don't have the extra time in residency to take the bus/BART/MUNI. Get a car, find cheap insurance, and you'll like SF a lot better.

 

[BareFoot]

and I thought i could get away with it...anyone out there bike in SF?

i guess i'll have to start looking into car loans...

thanks

 

[tsj]

You can live there without a car, but it ain't no NY or CHicago as far as public transit goes.

The thing they call the muni "subway" is a total joke. It stops for stop signs and pedestrians and gets stuck in traffic jams on surface streets, and then in the subway all 5 lines run down Market St, so if a train breaksdown/stalls (which seemed to happen with considerable regularity) the whole system freezes.

BART is worthless in the the city unless you live on Mission Street and want to go to Market Street or vice versa.

Busses are busses and run with incredible infrequency in the late evenings. SF is not a "late-night" city and basically it closes down shortly after12AM on weeknights and 2AM on weekends but still its public transport is only good until about 10PM unless you really want to wait, and then the cabs are hard to come by at that time. THere were countless times that I would just have to walk home in the middle of the night, which is OK in that temperate climate.

Also with no car, it is difficult to see the lovely sites in the Bay Area such as Marin or Half Moon Bay.

Get a car.

 

[blueberry]

I don't agree with the people dissing the Muni system, I think it's pretty good compared to many other places. No it's not perfect, but it's not as bad as people in this thread make it sound like. It does suck when the whole sys. freezes, but not ALL the bus lines are underground anyway. and if it gets into traffic jams, you would too if you're driving!!

I think there may be a bus going from sfgh to paransuss. Do a search on www.transitinfo.org, click on 511 trip planner, and type in the STREET address for paranassus and SFGH, that should give you the answer. I"m too lazy do that, so...

I agree that getting a car is a good idea, but parking is horrible in SF (expensive). good luck.

 

[Arginine]

hi,

will be starting residency in SF...do I absolutely need a car? i want to live next to UCSF...how do you guys get to SFGH without a car (esp if you need to get there early since shuttle does not run until 6AM)? is there an easy bike route? or bus route from UCSF to SFGH? or will have have to buy a car.......

The shuttle that runs from UCSF-SFGH does have a rather limited schedule. I lived in SF for 13 years (4 with no car, 9 with car). It's definitely more convenient to have a car, but parking is hell. The neighborhoods near UCSF are the inner Sunset and Cole Valley, both of which are relatively quiet residential areas with nice shops & restaurants. The much vilified N-Judah streetcar that runs close to UCSF actually has improved its timing quite a bit over the last couple of years. You could theoretically take the N-Judah to the Van Ness station, then catch the 9 San Bruno bus to SFGH (it drops you off on Potrero, right in front of the hospital). Or you could go N-Judah to Van Ness station and hop on an outbound J-Church streetcar that lets you off at Church & 24th Street, then catch a #48 bus to SFGH (it drops you off on 23rd & Potrero). The problem is that there's no direct bus route from UCSF to SFGH. A bicycle would probably be faster. I love SF, but I would hesitate to depend on public transportation if I needed to get to the hospital at a certain time. You could try it without a car to see how it goes, but you may find yourself eventually getting a car...(in all fairness, the public transportation system down here in Los Angeles is 1000 times worse than in SF, although parking is much more manageable in the southland)

Another solution would be to consider living in a neighborhood between UCSF & SFGH. My old neighborhood on 14th Street & Guerrero (the edge of the Mission/Duboce Triangle/Castro) was fairly central and close to all transportation systems: buses, streetcars, BART stations. I could easily hop on the N-Judah for a 10 minute ride to UCSF or grab one of the Mission Street buses (#14 or 49) to 24th & Mission to transfer to the #48 bus to SFGH.

 

[j_sde]

Arginine...blueberry.. tsj.. i sent you pms, please check, thanks

 

[j_sde]

sorry... please disregard the above posting and the pm's i sent to you guys. i found most of the answers i was lookin for already. thanks