Uber also says it will cap Uber Pool rides between Parkmerced and public transit hubs at $5 by creating a geofence around the property. Anyone taking an Uber Pool trip from the Parkmerced to the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s Daly City or Balboa Park stations, as well as the West Portal MUNI, will pay a flat $5 fare. Riders going from those stations to Parkmerced will also only pay $5.
I am too much of a suburban redneck to take public transport, yes, even in the city. Is $5 a ride a good deal? With Uber Pool you are sharing the ride with some other people. Not as luxurious as the regular Uber.
I am excited about Uber sneaking its way into being part of the “public” transport infrastructure. Imagine instead of buses running on rigid, pre-planned routes and schedules, we have Uber Pool that are on-demand and flexible.
Maybe “instead of” is a bad word. It will be a long time before Uber can replace buses. But Uber is an excellent way to supplement it.
I am surprised SF is so accommodating of Uber. Many parts of the world are still outright hostile to Uber, like Austin, Hong Kong, Paris, and NYC not too long ago. If only I can buy Uber stocks… When will Uber IPO???
Come on now, if you live in the greatest city in the world, you must ride the public train system regularly. I do. I have been doing so regularly so since a young lad being bused out to the Mission. I wonder how many parents today would allow their kids to ride across the city on their own to school. Oh, by the way, a ride on Muni is now $2.25 I believe one way with transferring if you wanted to know. I buy the monthly pass so don’t know what individual pricing is like anymore. One nice thing about the monthly pass is that riding on the cable cars is included (as it is part of Muni). THAT is a great deal.
There’s a service that is trying to do point to point bus transportation called magicbus.io. The idea is that with enough riders, they pick you up within a couple blocks from your house and drop you within a couple blocks from your work in SF. We were quoted $11/pp each way from RWC to SF. That’s about $500 month. Compared to current costs, though: $50 parking plus $10 (or free) Caltrain for my husband (=$60/m), and my son is $70/m Caltrain plus $5/day shared taxi in the city. Latter works out to about $200/m. So unfortunately, I’d say that these fares would have to come down a bit to be worthwhile. Though honestly, if my husband weren’t working in SF and commuting with my son, maybe it would be worth some extra cost to not have to drop my son and pick him up at Caltrain every day. $300/m though? I’d have to be working a full time Tech job.
Hey, less stress of having to drive and the chance to take a nap or read something great (like postings from this wonderful site) might make this worth it alone. Come on, I had coworkers who vanpooled it in from Vacaville. That is too far though
Checking BART, even from Millbrae to Embarcadero SF is $4.65 one way (not including the station parking plus the driving to Millbrae). It totally makes sense for BART to become a complete circular system where one can fully circle the Bay Area on BART. Our transit systems are too disjointed but def eons better than LA…
Actually, doesn’t make sense for either party. Husband is 15 minute walk from Caltrain stop and needs the exercise. Son takes taxi instead of Muni, but it’s door to door, so don’t have to worry about him walking in the city alone. Magicbus won’t drop him at the door. The question is whether it’s worth my time not dropping/picking him up from Caltrain and right now I don’t drop because he goes with my husband. Either way, they’re both reading/listening to podcasts on their commute anyways. Husband only drives to and from local Caltrain stop.
What’s actually an interesting point is that his Caltrain pass is subsidized–Caltrain gives a sweet deal to companies to buy-in to company-wide passes for $10/pp (I never figured out if that was $10 for every employee, or for every employee that signs up with a minimum total price to the company). So this will never be competitive pricewise for my husband.
Still, I think it’s very interesting, and if he worked farther where he did have to transfer, you’re right that it would be more appealling.
I have been thinking about Pacifica though… Close to the city, but nicely wooded… But I just put the other two kids in new schools and I’m not going to drive to RWC to get them there, so that kind of move would mean new school for them and would be 2-3 years out to give them some stability.
Also there are some nice wooded parts of Oakland.
Anything Bartable may work for us, but #1’s school is moving at the end of next year, and location is not yet known.
Capitola was our go-to beach when we lived in San Jose. Now that we moved to SF our go-to beach is Pacifica. It’s a beautiful beach town with a slower pace. Lots of greens. Unfortunately my kid’s school is in the northern part of SF. My wife has made it clear our next move will have to go north…
