I am planning on taking BART from the Powell St. station to Downtown Berkeley for a concert on a Friday night.The concert does'nt end in Berkeley until 11:00 pm.I then plan on taking BART back to San Francisco. Is this a safe thing to do,or should I make alternate arrangements.

Lovejoy:

You will be fine. Many folks take BART to evening performances in Berkley and in Oakland.

Now Downtown SF after 11:00pm...that is your issue! Walk with someone or cell phone yourself a cab.

Enjoy your event.

Oaktown Traveler

Powell and Embarcadero stations are safe. Montgomery may be not safe at night.

As long as you don't wear a "Re-elect Bush" button you'll be fine.

After 8 pm there's no direct train from Berkeley to S.F., transfer at McArthur which is open air, or Oakland 12th St which is enclosed.

I agree with OaktownTraveler. Downtown SF at night is like a ghosttown which makes it somewhat unsafe to walking aroud by yourself.

Lovejoy, I took this same Berkeley-San Francisco BART trip at about the same time of night many, many times while attending night classes in one place and living in the other.

There is no reason that you should be more concerned about it beyond that you should always be fairly vigilant in the heart of any major metropolitan area at any time. You will find all the BART stations which have been mentioned above, and all the trains you will take, teeming with nearly as wide a variety of people as you would see in midafternoon. This includes the Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell and even Civic Center stations in S.F., all of which will be particularly busy on Friday night with people returning to the East Bay from dinners and entertainment in The City.

If you are feeling at all nervous about the people you may be waiting with in Oakland to transfer trains, unless it is unusually cold or blowing rain I would transfer at MacArthur rather than Oakland Downtown-12th street. (While MacArthur is open air, it is covered, busy, well monitored, and secure from the street.) However, I transferred alone at both stations many times, and never experienced any problem.

Thanks for all the useful replies.I guess I'll take BART.