EMY to San Francisco bus

[Bonser]

I booked tickets for the California Zephyr from DEN-EMY, but didn't book a bus to San Francisco. Do you need to have tickets for the bus to board the bus? or can I just walk on?

Yes. Perhaps you can purchase them at Emeryville.

 

[Brian Battuello]

I'd check on that, because I doubt they have a license for local transportation. Why not just ask Amtrak to add it to your ticket? Done correctly couldn't be more than a few dollars.

Re the walk above, that was my exact work commute for many years.

 

[JontyMort]

It's a pretty easy and definitely safe walk. Go the more direct pedestrian route through the alley to Market St and then straight up Sansome. It's flat. Of course it could be difficult if you have tons of luggage or your personal physical ability is limited, but it's definitely safe.

Great, thanks. I suspected as much, but it’s good to know. We’re reasonably fit, and it’s one of those trips where you have to be prepared to carry all the luggage at least some of the time.

 

[MainerTrainer]

Are there taxis or ride share services at the bus stop on Mission St.? We’re staying near Fisherman’s Wharf and don’t want to walk.

Also, aside from no station, etc. is it ok/safe while waiting for the bus back to EMY?

Thanks.

 

[desertflyer]

Are there taxis or ride share services at the bus stop on Mission St.? We’re staying near Fisherman’s Wharf and don’t want to walk.

Also, aside from no station, etc. is it ok/safe while waiting for the bus back to EMY?

Thanks.

You could easily get a ride share there. Taxi shouldn't be too difficult and should cost less, but hailing one can vary. If you want a taxi in San Francisco, I highly recommend using the Flywheel app. It works just like Uber and Lyft but is a taxi and isn't subject to variable pricing. The ride share prices have been very expensive here lately.

It's a safe place to wait for the bus back to EMY. It's basically a business/downtown area of the city. There are places to sit within view of the bus stop.

 

[MainerTrainer]

It's a safe place to wait for the bus back to EMY. It's basically a business/downtown area of the city. There are places to sit within view of the bus stop.

A belated thanks for your reply!

 

[desertflyer]

A belated thanks for your reply!

I hope you have/had a nice visit to SF!

 

[MainerTrainer]

Thanks—We’ll be there next month!

 

[SanDiegan]

I'm not worried about the $1 (if that is what it costs). It is the annoying habit of the COE to cancel your entire reservation and rebook it at a substantially higher price, just because that is easier than changing it.
Thousands of years ago, I was in San Francisco and had tickets on the Coast Starlight from Oakland (NOT Emeryville) to Los Angeles. We planned to take BART to Oakland West (now West Oakland for some reason) and a cab to Oakland station. Eight blocks, but not something you'd want to walk in those days, even on a Sunday morning. We didn't know that BART didn't run on Sundays. Date that! So we were directed to the Trans Bay Terminal to take an F bus, but saw a lonely little Amtrak ticket counter. We asked the agent the best way to get to Oakland, and he told us to pick up the Amtrak bus out front. Those were the days!

p.s. Can you imagine doing this without cell phones or the internet? Travel was a lot more of an adventure.

p.p.s. Okay, this was in 1976. BART Sunday service started in July 1978.

Had a very similar experience at West Oakland BART in the late 1980's. A taxi dropped a fare off at the BART station and I made it to the CZ with about a minute to spare !

 

[SanDiegan]

Not yet. No one seems to know when or if the other stops will be added back. It is really going to be up to CalTrans as they're the ones in charge of the Thruway bus routes in California.

Caltrans is no longer in charge of the Thruway Buses. It's Amtrak or the JPA's, depending on the train.

 

[lakela66]

Any recent travelers who can update the location of the San Francisco stop for the thruway bus to EMY to catch the Coast Starlight? My ticket says bus 6624 at 6:55 am from San Francisco to Emeryville. No hint of a location. Amtrak.com says the SF station is 555 Mission. I’m on deep hold with Amtrak now hoping to get a human to tell me where my bus will be.

 

[zephyr17]

Any recent travelers who can update the location of the San Francisco stop for the thruway bus to EMY to catch the Coast Starlight? My ticket says bus 6624 at 6:55 am from San Francisco to Emeryville. No hint of a location. Amtrak.com says the SF station is 555 Mission. I’m on deep hold with Amtrak now hoping to get a human to tell me where my bus will be.

It is a curbside bus stop, not a station.

 

[lakela66]

It is a curbside bus stop, not a station.

Thanks for the clarification. Mostly I just wanted to be sure it hadn’t moved around. From prior posts I was getting confused, and my ticket has no information whatsoever.

 

[BCL]

Yes. Perhaps you can purchase them at Emeryville.

The answer is a bit complicated. In California, the state subsidizes all the thruway buses and by law doesn't allow them to be booked without being booked along with a train segment. I heard that Greyhound lobbied for this years ago. The exception is buses from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe, where there is no other bus service. Now I have done some weird stuff to get an Amtrak ride. I literally used multi-city to book a morning trip from EMY-GAC and then forced an SFC-EMY trip later that night. I took Caltrain to get to San Francisco and also took Muni to get to the bus stop. But that's allowed.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&sectionNum=14035.55
I have been at a station when I had a problem and an Amtrak employee told me that she could book a certain bus-only routing, but I wouldn't be able to book it on my own. Otherwise it might also be possible to use multi-city to book an extremely short train segment plus the bus ride. Then the train segment can be thrown away and the bus segment used alone. We've discussed that little trick.

I just did a sample booking for this Saturday. It was Berkeley-Emeryville on 741, followed by Emeryville-San Francisco on 5005. All the bus segments said "must book with train". The cash price was $11.50. Granted it would have been an additional $1 if booked with the original, but I understand the concerns that modifying the trip may result in unintended consequences.

 

[enviro5609]

The answer is a bit complicated. In California, the state subsidizes all the thruway buses and by law doesn't allow them to be booked without being booked along with a train segment. I heard that Greyhound lobbied for this years ago. The exception is buses from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe, where there is no other bus service. Now I have done some weird stuff to get an Amtrak ride. I literally used multi-city to book a morning trip from EMY-GAC and then forced an SFC-EMY trip later that night. I took Caltrain to get to San Francisco and also took Muni to get to the bus stop. But that's allowed.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&sectionNum=14035.55
I have been at a station when I had a problem and an Amtrak employee told me that she could book a certain bus-only routing, but I wouldn't be able to book it on my own. Otherwise it might also be possible to use multi-city to book an extremely short train segment plus the bus ride. Then the train segment can be thrown away and the bus segment used alone. We've discussed that little trick.

I just did a sample booking for this Saturday. It was Berkeley-Emeryville on 741, followed by Emeryville-San Francisco on 5005. All the bus segments said "must book with train". The cash price was $11.50. Granted it would have been an additional $1 if booked with the original, but I understand the concerns that modifying the trip may result in unintended consequences.

I believe that was was repealed recently.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB742
But I’m not sure what changes that meant in practice.

 

[BCL]

I believe that was was repealed recently.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB742
But I’m not sure what changes that meant in practice.

OK. I looked up the old Government Code section and saw something that seemed a little bit different than I remember, so I guess it has been changed. But it says that it has to be done in cooperation with joint powers authorities. It's still not possible to book an Amtrak thruway bus service from Emeryville to San Francisco alone without a train segment attached. So as a practical matter, the only way to really just get a bus ticket is to use it with a throwaway train segment.

 

[Skimmy]

It is a curbside bus stop, not a station.

Look for the big CHASE bank sign. AT least it was in July

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

Roughly following the F line of the old Key system trolleys first by ferry and then by rail over the Bay Bridge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_System#/media/File:Architect_and_engineer_(1933)_(14781438192).jpg
Key system transbay ferry dock. Note early Bay Bridge construction in the background.

That is a great historical pic from the halcyon days of San Francisco long before it decayed to what it is today. It is interesting how far out into the bay they built the terminal.

 

[BCL]

That is a great historical pic from the halcyon days of San Francisco long before it decayed to what it is today. It is interesting how far out into the bay they built the terminal.

I think that was what later became the Berkeley Pier after the Key System was defunct. My dad used to take me fishing there. There was only a certain point, but I could clearly see there was more of the pier that was not maintained, including sections that were either dismantled or collapsed. I think at this point most of the part that wasn't a public fishing pier was removed.

 

[zephyr17]

Key System moved off the Key pier long before they went defunct. They moved onto the Bridge Railway when the Bay Bridge opened in 1939 and served San Francisco's Transbay Terminal directly until 1958.

 

[deBASHmode]

Any recent travelers who can update the location of the San Francisco stop for the thruway bus to EMY to catch the Coast Starlight? My ticket says bus 6624 at 6:55 am from San Francisco to Emeryville. No hint of a location. Amtrak.com says the SF station is 555 Mission. I’m on deep hold with Amtrak now hoping to get a human to tell me where my bus will be.

That's where I caught the thruway bus to EMY last month.

I added the thruway bus after booking the train ticket, and the $1 charge wasn't collected. The customer service agent on the phone said it just wasn't worth the trouble. You definitely do have to have a reservation and show it to board.

 

[deBASHmode]

https://www.actransit.org/bus-lines-schedules/F
Roughly following the F line of the old Key system trolleys first by ferry and then by rail over the Bay Bridge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_System#/media/File:Architect_and_engineer_(1933)_(14781438192).jpg
Key system transbay ferry dock. Note early Bay Bridge construction in the background.

I moved to SF in 1997, way too late to cross the bridge via rail. *sigh*

Ironically, the Key systems building at 11th and Broadway in Oakland is now the lobby (not yet open) of a new high rise that finished construction last year that my company occupies the top 7 floors of. I've been just once because of Covid, but I can't wait until the lobby is completed (will be offices, retail and eateries) to explore the details of the old key systems building.

https://www.thekeyoakland.com/

 

[Willbridge]

I moved to SF in 1997, way too late to cross the bridge via rail. *sigh*

Ironically, the Key systems building at 11th and Broadway in Oakland is now the lobby (not yet open) of a new high rise that finished construction last year that my company occupies the top 7 floors of. I've been just once because of Covid, but I can't wait until the lobby is completed (will be offices, retail and eateries) to explore the details of the old key systems building.

https://www.thekeyoakland.com/

On my first trip to SF -- Spring 1960 -- our SP connecting Pacific Greyhound bus took the lower deck of the Bay Bridge and we could see workers cutting the rails out, adjacent to the bus and truck lanes. Strings of Key System bridge articulateds were lined up on the SP Oakland Pier waiting to be shipped out.



A dozen years later I worked with a P. Eng. who had gone out with some other students from Cal to watch the first day of operation. Several trains got lost. It's interesting to think of what a short era the bridge trains symbolized.

 

[joelkfla]

https://www.actransit.org/bus-lines-schedules/F
Roughly following the F line of the old Key system trolleys first by ferry and then by rail over the Bay Bridge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_System#/media/File:Architect_and_engineer_(1933)_(14781438192).jpg
Key system transbay ferry dock. Note early Bay Bridge construction in the background.

I wouldn't call the bridge units trolleys. They're big, heavy critters; might even qualify as heavy rail.
Key System 182 - Western Railway Museum (wrm.org)
Key System 186 - Western Railway Museum (wrm.org)

 

[zephyr17]

I

I wouldn't call the bridge units trolleys. They're big, heavy critters; might even qualify as heavy rail.
Key System 182 - Western Railway Museum (wrm.org)
Key System 186 - Western Railway Museum (wrm.org)

And they didn't even have trolley poles. They used pantographs.