Car Advice For San Francisco
 

I have read other post about having a car in San Francisco and how it is useless,but I still feel uncertain and would please like some advice. I will be ariving at SFO on a Monday, then driiiving to Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and Carmel before arriving back in San Francisco the following Sunday, where I will stay at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero until leaving that Wednesday. I'm renting from Budget, which has an office where I can turn it in right there at the hotel. But only having three days in SF, I wonder if it won't give me a lot more freedom to rome the city, besides transportion back to the airport (I'm don't really care for aiport shuttles). The cost to keep the car the extra days would be $60 plus the $90-$120 for parking. Is it crazy to think about keeping the car? Or might it be worth the money for the convenience?

ttt

As I recall a taxi to the airport will be about $30. You can drop the car off right at your hotel as you arrive. So basically you're asking if you should spend an extra $120 to $150 to keep the car. Unless you have money to throw away, I can't possibly think of a good reason. Costs of taking taxis everywhere you want to go, will still probably be less than additional parking charges and valet tips if you have your rental car. <BR>I suppose if you really wanted to tour the city -- driving out and through Golden Gate Park or over the bridge to Sausalito, you might compromise by keeping the car through Monday -- which would be far less money just for the extra two days of parking.<BR>But with only three days in San Francisco, I would suggest you just turn in the car when you get there.

Dump the car. The reason parking is so expensive in the City is that it is hard to find. You would be spending $200 or more and dealing with a major inconvenience and aggravation. San Francisco has excellent public transportation. And as far as getting to the airport, a limo, or cab, are/is also an option.

You don't want a car. The best way is to buy a pass, I think you can buy three day ones, for the bus and streetcar. If not take them anyway without a pass or a taxi instead. A taxi or van to the airport is the best way to go. It you have little luggage take BART to Daly City and a Taxi down to the airport.

Don, you've already calculated the cost of keeping the car in the city. Only you can determine if it's worth it. It's NOT worth it if you are going to hang out in the downtown area or spend your time taking ferries, etc. But it IS useful if you get outside of the downtown area. And outside of downtown or fisherman's wharf you can find free parking.

If I remember right, don512, you are the one with the wife who can't sit at a table in the middle of a restaurant or at one next to other people along the sides. So I assume there is no way she is going to get on a bus or cablecar. But even taxis will be less expensive than keeping the car for the extra three days. If you want a driving tour of the city, I'm sure your hotel can arrange one for you with a private driver for less than the cost of keeping the car and parking it. Trust me here, get rid of the car!

Don, <BR><BR>Having the car in SF is a definite benefit. I know that some people will disagree with that. I live here in SF and believe me, driving around here is not a big deal. Parking in downtown lots or garages is readily available. As Belinda mentioned, parking outside of downtown is typically free. Yes, you can get around town on public transportation, but is is relatively inefficient. Also, you cannot hail a cab as you can in NYC for example, so you may have to wait for one for 20 or 30 minutes after calling for one. Bottom line, having a car in SF outweighs any potential drawbacks.

You will spend all of your sight seeing time looking for a parking spot. Spent two weeks with a girlfriend that lives in Nob Hill and the only time we took her car out of the garage was to drive to Sedona.

Don: I would just disregard the naysayers who advise against having a car in SF. Maybe they are not used to driving in a city. Driving in SF is no more inconvenient than any other city. It will be much easier for you to get the most out of your 3 days in SF if you have a car.

Don - I live within a 90 minute drive of SF and go there frequently. But unless I am driving north along the Marin coast I never (or hardly ever) touch my car the whole time I am in the city. I know my way around, know where many of the garages and parking lots are - and it is still not worth it. It is often faster to take cable cars, buses, cabs or walk than to drive and look for a parking space.<BR><BR>I have several friends who live in SF but do not even own cars. They rent cars when they take trips out of the city - but never drive in SF.<BR><BR>Some natives will advise you go ahead and keep the car - BUT you won't know where the secret parking places are, which intersections are signal controlled (HUGE consideration in SF), which streets are one way, and which end up being the steepest streets you have ever seen in your life. Streets so steep the sidewalks are stairs because you cannot walk up them.<BR><BR>Not a fun experience for a newbie to turn left after waitig through 4 signals because there is no turn arrow and discover you are heading up a huge hill with a stop sign and blind intersection at the top.<BR><BR>TURN IN THE CAR!

I cast my vote with the &quot;turn it in&quot; crowd. If you decide you absolutely need a car then rent it again for the <BR>day. Frankly, parking will be alot of $. And, depending on where you plan to travel in the city you might do better paying cab fare than having to find parking and then paying the fees. Meter espiration tix are now $25 I think in SF. If you fail to realize it's street cleaning day that's $25 as well. No place you need to get to in the city should really cost more than $10 max by cab (that would be the farther reaches). As others have said, it's approximately $30 by cab to the airport. It's possible the hyatt has an express bus or another hyatt in the city does that will drop you off at the airport(there is more than one hyatt in SF). If you plan to park about the city and have the luck to park in municipal garages it will still cost you about $3-5 for a few hours and up to about $20 for max. Lots about the city are much more. Can you tell I find parking in SF to be one of life's curses?

EdnaB, I didn't mean to make it sound like my wife didn't like being next to people or that she is antisocial. I think at dinner, she tends to enjoy some privacy and conversation without feeli like you have strangers seated at the table with us. In our travels, we have never had a problem with public transportation. Subways are not something we have where we live and can be an adventure in another city. So that's not really the issue. We have been to San Francisco several times before, and don't really know what we are going to do when we get there. We have done most of the touristy things, which I know are well accesible by public transportation. I'm not saying that we won't be doing some of these things again, I'm just not sure what else we might want to do. The airport shuttles are more of a problem with me. Any suggestion on limo services? Is that something I need to arrange in advance?

Don512, when you go to other cities that are unfamiliar to you, do you use a car to drive around? Do you enjoy doing that? If so, you can keep the car. Some cities require a car (L.A. is a prime example), but it is not necessary in SF. If I were to choose, I would dump it, even though as an inhabitant of SF I use one all the time. But I know my way around and do not have to look for signs and watch traffic and enjoy the sights all at the same time.

I am just curious about the people who suggest not getting a car. Do those who suggest not getting a car prefer not to drive in general? I live near a large city and drive approximately 1 hour to work each day and 1 hour home, usually in traffic. Many people that I tell this to think that I am crazy, but I don't mind. I would rather have the freedom of my car. Therefore, regardless of what the posts say, I am going to rent a car when I am in San Francisco. I think that to rent or not to rent depends on your &quot;car/driving&quot; personality, not what city you are in.

Minnesota,<BR><BR>I live in SF and completely agree with you. Having a car is much more convenient that relying on the spotty public transportation that we have here in SF. I think that many of the people who say not too have a car in SF are these ultra liberal green people only eat organic food.

Well I rarely eat organic food, and have never been called an ultra liberal green -- in fact I drive an SUV (gasp!). But when I rented an apt in Cow Hollow for a full month, and again when I stayed there for two weeks, my car (yes I had one there) stayed in the garage except for trips out of the city. Except one morning we drove up to breakfast at Ella's (is the name right?) and circled for about a half hour trying to find a place to park -- which we finally found about five blocks away. Otherwise we'd hop on the bus less than a block from our apt.(one went by about every 12 minutes maximum) and rode directly to Fisherman's Wharf, North Beach, Chinatown, Union Square, and Market. It was sooooooo much easier than taking the car. I suppose it depends on where you are staying, but if it is near Union Square or any other major area, the public transportation is far from &quot;spotty&quot; -- in fact it is wonderful and cheap as well as dependable. Now if we were talking Los Angeles, I can't imagine not having a car!!!

Minnesota - I love driving, but I am in the camp that thinks a car is SF is more of a liability than an asset. I know SF reasonably well and am used to driving in traffic. Still, even if I bring my car into SF, I rarely use it. The city is not that large geographically, the public transit system is good, and parking can get expensive. Even just the hotel parking is expensive. <BR><BR>And SFer, in case you are wondering, I am not an ultra liberal green person only eats organic food. I am a meat and potatoes, middle of the road type of person working in the nuclear power industry. <BR><BR>I just think SF is nicer without a car. <BR>

Don,<BR><BR>It sounds to me like the question you're trying to ask yourself, is how much auto-convenience you can get for the $150-180 you anticipate it will cost you to keep the car.<BR><BR>Only YOU can really answer that, but things to consider are:<BR><BR>a) the cost of the transport BACK to the airport. You said you don't like shuttles? Do you mean commercial shuttles or Free Hotel Shuttles? Does your hotel offer a free hotel shuttle?<BR><BR>b) where are you gonna go in those 3 days in SF? Is one of them a travel day getting you back to SFO? You will already have done a lot of driving getting up to Lake Tahoe &amp; such. I really like driving, almost rabidly, so that might not be too much for me, but maybe that's more driving than you want to put in on a vacation.<BR><BR>c) how much do you care about the $150-$180? If that is not a substantial amount of cash to you, ie, if you end up storing your car and not using it much or at all, how mad are you going to be?<BR><BR>d) how rattled do you get if you can't find easy street parking? Downtown there are pay garages, but downtown you'll also probably walk. Places I could conceivably see driving to: the Marina, Hayes Valley, Haight St, the Castro and Noe Valley have ugly street parking scenes. Ocean Beach and the Palace of the Legion of Honor do not have such scary parking.<BR><BR>Those are the questions I would ask myself in trying to decide if it were worth the expense.<BR><BR>Hope they help you figure it out.

Ultra green liberal people? Hmmmm. <BR><BR>Minnesota, I think BayArea answered your question well but I would add; there are cities and there are cities. For years I drove into SF to work. And I had an assigned parking place (for which I paid dearly) and at the end of the day I drove back out. I did not want to be bothered with the train or BART. But if I were going to the city for several days would I RENT a car? It would depend completely what I was planning to do. If I wanted to stay within the downtown, Embarcadero, Wharf, Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach area? No way. It's not worth trying to park, paying to park, navigating unfamiliar one way streets with doubleparked trucks. <BR><BR>On the other hand if you want to venture out into the further reaches of the city or even leave the city altogether, AND you don't mind the expense of parking at your hotel, AND you are comfortable with the unknown idiocyncracies of a new city (and believe me, you are not in Minneapolis any more), by all means... get a car.<BR><BR>And while you are here, please enjoy all the colors of the rainbow in your menu. We have lots more than green things to eat. :-)

OK apparently in order to give advice we are required to give credentials in order to be believable--so, I love driving my car, I don't think driving in SF is difficult, I live and work in SF, and I don't want to discourage anyone from travelling around the City with ease, but my recommendation would to be not to have a car for all 3 days. I do not drive to work downtown even though I would love to because to park even three blocks from where I work costs $25 per day at a City owned garage,and even if that were not an issue I cannot find a legal parking space in my neighborhood after 6:30 p.m. (After 9 p.m. there are no illegal places except bus stops) In other words, I'm not anti driving, I'm against being frustrated. Now, if money is not an issue at all, keep the car, park in any garage downtown and pay for valet parking (assuming it's available ) when you go out.

Minnesota,<BR><BR>I would diregard the people who advise against having a car in SF. I do not think that it is worth to spend a half hour on 2 buses just to go about 5 miles when you can go the same distance in less than half the time.<BR><BR>As to the parking situation. Parking in town is plentiful both downtown (garages or lots) and outside of downtown parking is typically free and not much of a problem. If you have driven in a city before, SF should be no problem.<BR><BR>It seems that alot of people on this board who recommend not having a car in SF would rather have more parking spaces to themselves when they drive themselves into town.

I've lived in many neighborhoods and worked in one neighborhood in SF for 15+ years and have commuted for another<BR>6 years and I would advise against a car given what you have stated. (don512). I know the city well and have gotten to know the secret parking places over the years..that being said I would still say for a few days in the city you do not need a car. Walking,cabs,muni up Market or along the Embarcadero,cable cars even would suffice.

PS Ultra green liberal indeed, try to eat organic whenever possible including good steak, drive a new volvo and would still advise dumping the car.

Grasshopper,<BR><BR>Judging from a segment of two of your recent posts below, it seems rather odd that you and Spike both use the phrase &quot;Hmmmm&quot; , right down to using the same number of m's. Coincidence? Probably not. It is not a good idea to be posting under more than one screen name if you want to maintain credibility on this board. What makes this forum helpful is the diversity of opinion and experiences. Arguing with others and posting under different names to try and get a point across is a disservice to those on this board who are trying to obtain useful information. <BR>Car Advice For San Francisco<BR>Author: Grasshopper<BR>Date: 02/25/2003, 06:23 pm<BR><BR>Message: Ultra green liberal people? Hmmmm. <BR><BR><BR>Where to stay? Flying into San Jose<BR>Author: Spike<BR>Date: 02/23/2003, 12:27 pm<BR><BR>Message: It is about 60 miles from Big Basin to San Francisco. Hmmmm....

You are a piece of work! Spike, what do you think? Are you my alter-ego? We are at the very least soul mates, we hold our fingers on the &quot;m&quot; key for precisely the same amount of time when we type hmmmmmm.<BR><BR>SFer, click on my name then click on Spike's name. My guess is you will find we are different people.

Grasshopper,<BR><BR>It would be best to admit when you have been caught redhanded rather than deny the truth.

We were in SFO last week.We stayed at Union Square and didn't rent a car until we left the city for Carmel.(from ALABAMO)<BR>We walked through Chinatown till Fisherman's Wharf.You may need it for Golden Gate Park(japanese tea garden?)<BR>..etc and if it rains.Muni and buses are<BR>very comfortable and Muni drivers are really cool and funny people.SFO is a lovely city and we hope to come back soon.Hope you enjoy your stay.

Credentials - Hmmmmm (just to make SFer paranoid) - I drive a sports car - used to race Formula Fords and SCCA, LOVE to drive, have taught defensive driving as part a past job -- in other words I am a DRIVER. And I STRONGLY recommend not driving in SF. I do and I can, but it is not something someone from the midwest, or just about anywhere would enjoy.<BR><BR>I also would not recommend a car in Manhatten or Chicago or London - in Souix City or St Paul, sure.<BR><BR>people do drive every day in all of the above places - but it is really stupid for a tourist to have a car in SF - parking, traffic, one way streets, and the REALLY steep hills make an SF novice a disaster waiting to happen.

I find the debate on the merits of having a car in SF quite amusing. The bottom line is yes, rent a car while in SF. Everyone here who advises against having a car is overexaggerating the difficulty of driving and parking in town. I always drive when I am in SF and have not had any more problems driving or parking there than in any other populated area. I'd rather be driving that waiting and hour for a bus any day of the week.

&quot;I'd rather be driving that waiting and hour for a bus any day of the week&quot;.(sic)<BR><BR>Duh, yes, so would I, but since I always stay on Chestnut or Union and the busses run every 12 minutes MAXIMUM that is an idiotic comparison. Sort of like saying I'd rather drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco than taking a 12 hour plane ride. I'd drive too if I had to wait an hour for a bus, but I don't. On the other hand I've found few places to park in SF in less than 12 minutes of searching, or lining up and going up the garage ramps bumper to bumper -- not to mention the high rates to park there.<BR> <BR>I agree that driving is no worse than most major cities, but isn't it unfortunate that when a city like SF has really great, inexpensive, and reliable public transportation, so many people refuse to use it, and still insist on driving? I learned I could get to my destination quicker by bus than driving and parking in MOST instances. (YES I'VE DONE BOTH), but I doubt if some of these confirmed drivers have ever even tried the bus.

Hmmmm, to have a car or not? I spent a week there and rented a car. It sat in a lot except for driving to Calistoga one day and down to Big Sur on another. With that said, public transportation is not as easy or as quick as NYC. At night, you have to wait a good bit between MUNI buses, and like someone said, you can't just hail a cab.

Patrick, I lived in SF for a few years and now visit on a regular basis. Compared to other cities that have a population similar to SF's (ie: Columbus, Ohio or Jacksonville, Florida) yes, the public transportation is not that bad. But even though the schedule says the bus should come every 12 minutes, for example, we all know that it rarely happens that way. Numerous times I have waited an hour for a bus during the day which was supposed to come every 15 minutes. Also, given the budget deficits that SF is facing, bus and light rail service will be curtailed to make matters even worse. Compared to other cities in the U.S., SF's public transporation is a joke, any SF resident will agree with that. When I was there people always complained about how terrible it was, and it's not gettong any better.

Ok Don, you gotta let us know what you decide. Have you made your Boulevard reservations yet?

I guess I was just lucky. As I said I rented an apartment for a month near the corner of Union Street and Filmore and took busses every day, sometimes three or four times. Never -- ever -- did I wait more than maybe 15 minutes.<BR>Also rented at Cow Hollow Suites on Chestnut twice -- and never waited more than 15 minutes there either -- usually something like 3 to 7 minutes. Maybe I happened to be there the only 8 weeks in the history of San Francisco that had great bus service, but it was great the whole time I was there.

Patirck, You really have to live in SF for a while to really understand how terrible the public transportation system is. You can't judge a city's public transportation just based on a couple of bus lines.

Forgive me then. I guess I misunderstood. I thought don was asking from a tourist's point of view. I totally missed the idea that he is moving there and wants to make public transportation his way of life. I was just giving my viewpoint as a tourist -- one who has spent 8 weeks there, not living there. Guess it was all my mistake on what this post was about. I'll try to read it more closely next time so I understand better.<BR><BR>By the way, don, when are you moving to San Francisco, and are you sure you want to sell your car?

Oh, and I also made the mistake of talking about this from a tourist's point of view, one who would be staying on a major bus line. I failed to take in account someone who lives in a distant residential neighborhood where the bus service would be totally different from staying in a hotel or motel on a major bus line. Please forgive me.

Patrick, I am sorry if you misinterpreted my comments, but the point I was trying to make is that since I lived in SF for a number of years, I got to know the public transportation system quite well. Believe me, it is not something that you want to depend on whether you are in SF as a tourist or a resident.

Well actually I did not live in a &quot;distant&quot; residential neighborhood away from a major bus line line. I had the light rail on my street and a bus a block away.