Muni makes most areas of San Francisco pretty accessible, even if it can take awhile. But, as most of us know, people’s likelihood of using public transit goes down the more they have to transfer between routes to get where they’re going.
There’s a place I go weekly in Bernal Heights, which is about a mile from my Glen Park home. There are lots of places I can go in San Francisco, within a mile of wherever I am, that don’t require multiple transfers, but this isn’t one of them.
If I’m lucky, I can catch the 24 down to 30th and Church and then take the J home. But both are semi-unreliable — the 24 runs either ever five minutes or 20, depending on how it feels. The J runs every 10 minutes or maybe every 45.
If I can’t get the J, I can take the 24 to Mission, then take one of several buses to 24th St., then take BART back to Glen Park. That’s three separate routes. At this point, the whole prospect of using public transit to travel a mile or so begins to look pretty silly — except these are areas I wouldn’t want to walk through alone, especially at night.
Can you think of other short-distance journeys that require so many transfers? Or is this Bernal/Glen Park disconnect the worst of the lot?
– Beth W.
Photo by Flickr user gizzmo2z
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It’s preposterous, but it takes me two bus rides to get from Stockton at North Point (Pier 39) to that Transamerica/FiDi/North Beach hub. It’s less than a mile, I checked. 20 minutes to walk, with zero Muni headaches. THANKS MUNI.
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Last weekend, we were in the outer Richmond, and needed to get to the Presidio Theater, in the Marina. I was amazed that some of 511.org’s suggest routes involved three buses, and almost all suggested taking the 28 as one of two buses. The 28 goes to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge before turning back east toward the Marina. WTF?
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WALK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Anonymous, what part of, “these are areas I wouldn’t want to walk through alone, especially at night” didn’t you understand?
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Probably the part where you’re female.
Seems like a lot of males don’t understand that whole ‘ooh yeah maybe I don’t want to get mugged or raped’ mentality that some women seem to have. (Which is funny, because I note that these same men seem to be the ones who tend to blame the victim.)
(Okay, don’t know that exact area very well, maybe you’re not worried about being mugged or raped, but being harassed is bad enough.)
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