Transportation News

Best Cheap Ride Home for Night Owls

The MTC-sponsored “All Nighter” bus service has been named a winner in the
San Francisco Bay Guardian’s 32nd annual Best Of The Bay issue.

[From the Bay Guardian, July 26, 2006]
Thanks to the extra buck drivers now pay in bridge tolls since Regional Measure 2 took effect last year, people without cars can get across the bay long after BART stops running. A collaboration between five Bay Area transit agencies that was launched in December 2005, the All Nighter Bus Service became fully operational this March, running between 1 and 5 a.m. Not too much has changed with San Francisco’s Muni Owl lines, but the new AC Transit 800 line connects the city with the East Bay, where riders can transfer to other bus lines running along the Richmond, Pittsburgh–Bay Point, Fremont, and Dublin–Pleasanton BART lines as well as to Oakland International Airport and Alameda. SamTrans also runs a predawn line to SFO and Palo Alto. And transfer times at many stops are coordinated so riders can take the fewest number of buses with the fastest connections between them. That's great news for people who want to stay out late and risk missing that last train, as well as for those city dwellers who get the "can I crash at your place?" call when they do.