As an experiment I took public transit to the playoff game against Columbus. Here is my experience: I rode the Caltrain to the Tamien station, and then rode a bus (VTA Line 82) to the stadium. The bus dropped me off right in front of the ticket booth a few minutes before kickoff. It was just about perfect. Getting home however was an entirely different matter. The last Caltrain to leave Tamien was at 9pm, which left no time to get there. That leaves light rail and buses. Since I was going to Mountain View, those were very slow options. Also, the bus that goes right by the stadium stops running at 8, so I had to walk several blocks (and you know how that isn't such a great neighborhood...) to 1st St. where I caught a bus to downtown SJ. (There are buses running down Keyes, but I just missed that one, too.) My wife picked me up so I didn't need to slog it home on the light rail. I wrote an e-mail to Mark Akin, who works for the Quakes in Corporate Sales (he was at my employer selling tickets to a game earlier this year), describing my adventure. I asked that he forward it to the appropriate party, which he says he did. I suggested that they should work with Caltrain to delay that last train out of Tamien the way that they do with Shark games (from the main San Jose station), and to either set up a shuttle service, or arrange with VTA for Line 82 to make an extra trip or two. No word yet. What do you all think of this issue? The biggest problem for me with Spartan Stadium is the fact that it is way the heck down in south San Jose, and I live in Mountain View. And on big games, the traffic is a nightmare (the last home game against LA was particularly bad).
On paper, I would use public transportation to get to the games. There are a few problems I have with it. (1) The weekend Caltrain is shut down until 2004 to allow for construction of new track to accomodate express service between San Francisco and San Jose. (2) The trains don't run frequently after 7:00 pm. The last train leaves Tamien at 9:00 pm so it's a hassle to get from Spartan to Diridon/San Jose (which is right by the arena). The walk isn't too pleasant and it's a headache to get a taxi. If they had a last train leaving Tamien at 10:00 pm on a weeknight game I would most consider taking the rail. Getting to the game is no problem on a weeknight. Getting back is. On paper if they set up the public transportation links it would be great. Cheers!
On paper it looks good because the train station is a block away from the baseball grounds. For those working in San Francisco, it's a nightmare because of MUNI trying to get to the stadium, with the same line packed with commuters trying to get home. I always tried to get out early at my old job in the Financial District in order to beat the rush of fans getting to the stadium from the North and South. I'm glad I'm not working there because it would have been a headache getting out of town. 40,000 compared to 20,000 is gridlock. From the view of a fan, it is great, except for weekends for now where fans have to take the bus. From the standpoint of a worker/commuter working in San Francisco, they would be scrambling to get out of town or forced to be stuck with the fans. When BART gets to the airport and links to Caltrain just around that area, it will be easier to circumvent the area around the baseball grounds. Still crowded, but at least more options to get around the rush.
billward, I feel your pain. And Saturdays are worse, much worse. The times I took public transit down went something like this (after the Caltrain stopped running on the weekends): MUNI to Caltrain station RXX alternative bus service to SJ (Diridon) Taxi to Spartan On the way back, since the last RXX bus Caltrain substitute ran at 8pm, I had to do this: Walk to 1st Take VTA clear the hell to Fremont BART BART to SF MUNI home As you can see, it is a massive pain. The taxi from Diridon is semi-expensive (yes there are VTA routes from Diridon that get sort of close to Spartan, but they don't run often and I've not yet had time to wait for one). Walking at night after the game through that neighborhood, as you mentioned, to get to the VTA, is not ideal plus it's at least a 30 minute proposition. If on Quakes game days Caltrain would run their service in and out of Tamien at certain times (whether the train on Wednesdays or the bus on Saturdays), it would be ever so much simpler and less time consuming. In July after the construction began, I wrote to Caltrain about the lack of RXX buses out of San Jose after 8pm (mentioning that I was attending an Earthquakes game). They replied that they didn't have the personnel to do this. This makes little sense to me since they were running the last Saturday train at 10pm before construction, which takes far more personnel than the one driver per RXX bus. I'm sure that Santa Clara transit (or VTA or whoever they brokered the bus deal with) could hire a driver to do one last run in each direction. I think Caltrain is just trying to cut costs any way they can since they're hemorrhaging money as it is. Nevertheless, it seems utterly beside the point to have them as a public transportation service at all if they can't even run their service past 8pm on a weekend night.
An alternative Maybe, given some of the transportation issues, might be a thought to start a carpool. I know there are a few people who live in San Fran who can drive to the games. If there are those without a car, maybe try meeting half way. It's the offseason so there is more than enough time to consider what options there are. Just a take. Cheers!
I work about three blocks from the the giants' ballpark. Last night didn't seem bad unless you wanted to park your car near the stadium. It was actually kinda funny to hear all the people on cell phones saying the same thing: "I'm walking down 2nd Street; yeah, going to the Series." And since BART managed to avoid any police actions or train malfunctions last night, the commute seemed pretty smooth. Nap's idea about a car pool is a good one. Also, maybe if enough people showed interest, the Quakes and fans could pitch in to getting a bus from SF or the East Bay to Spartan (but only if it costs SVS+E less than $500 ). Of course, these are the things the front office should be working on during the off season. Go Quakes Tony
Exactly. I usually drive, but that severely limits my intake of frosty malted beverage. A shuttle leaving from a BART parking lot would be great. It really doesn't matter which station. I'd even chip in a few bucks for the ride, if necessary.
An excellent idea. I get tired of driving that 680-280 bit round trip, and it would be nice to sit back and relax and let someone else do it. Am sympathetic about the consumption of "frosty malted beverage," too.
So how do we go about expressing this to the Quakes? Should we go through ClubQuake? I think offering to foot at least part of the bill is necessary. I also have no idea how many people would take advantage of a bus service, but its worth looking into. Tony
I honestly don't think a shuttle to BART from the stadium is a realistic option. That's around 15-20 miles away and would serve only a small portion of the fan base. What would be helpful to more people and more realistic is a convinient bus link to and from downtown SJ. From there, people could get to Caltrain (when service is restored), light rail, the VTA bus to Fremont BART, and all the other VTA bus routes that go from downtown to various places. I'm thinking a bus that goes from the stadium, stops somewhere around 1st & Santa Clara, and then goes on to Diridon Station. Just start with one run of one bus and add more if demand is there. Maybe just have it postgame and not pregame, as people seem to have decent options with regularly-scheduled service before the game.
Noah: As always, an intelligent and thoughtful post. And you may well be right. But let me continue to make the case for an East Bay Quakes Express (copyright Tony Edwards LOL) That is the question, isn't it, how much of the fan base would any of these ideas serve? Are you referring to the Fremont BART station? For those of us in the east bay, a direct bus to/from the fremont station would also involve coordinating with the BART schedule (presently on Saturday nights, there are trains leaving Fremont every 20 minutes until 10:52 pm). There are a other benefits: 1)environmental/pollution: the fewer cars on the road, the better. 2)parking at the Stadium. 3)the experience. It would be great, I imagine, to get on the bus with Quake fans on the way to and from the stadium. But you can't quantify this. If it's three people, then it doesn't matter how great an experience it is, you're better off carpooling. 4)Revenue(?). Do the Quakes get any of the parking money? Do they get any of the money from that guy selling "authentic replicas" in the parking lot? I'm not suggesting the bus would be a cash cow however. Its important to acknowledge that your idea also helps with the getting cars off the road and with decreasing the need to park at the stadium. Speaking for myself, going thru SF to get to downtown San Jose to get to Spartan is not an ideal solution. Getting on a bus in Oakland or Fremont is, but that's geography more than anything. For people who live in SF or on the peninsula, however, yours sounds like a great idea. But then again, who is to say that more people attending from Hayward, Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, Concord, Walnut Creek (those cities alone are probably 700,000-800,000 in population combined) wouldn't make the bus idea worthwhile? So, why can't the Quakes work towards BOTH ideas, at least to study them and find out what kind of numbers it would take to justify the initial outlay? Tony
Last train from every end-of-the-line BART station leaves at midnight. My point was that there already is bus service between Fremont BART and San Jose. The missing link is how to get from the stadium to downtown where you could catch that bus and also have access to the public transit that heads elsewhere. Given the tightness of budgets, it's more realistic to find a way to move people 2 miles than 20, when existing service can move people the rest of those 20 miles.
A $5 ticket for a roundtrip shuttle ride would come pretty close to recouping costs for the Quakes. Depending on the number of people of course. I generally agree that it's best to make use of existing transportation. And having one shuttle hub would definitely maximize effectiveness. However, with the BART-VTA-shuttle option, trip length becomes a consideration. It would take two hours...each way. That's pushing it. A BART-shuttle trip would take about 1 1/2 hours. Since driving takes an hour anyways, the extra 1/2 hour is an acceptable trade-off for the convenience. Maybe VTA could re-route a couple of those BART to SJ buses past Spartan. How hard could that be?
A shuttle bus to the BART station would be awesome. I've done the commute many a time and it is slower than molasses. BART is okay, but waiting for the 80 (VTA bus) can take 30 minutes and then you still have to ride it for close to an hour just to get to downtown SJ, where it leaves you a couple of miles short of Spartan. (I bring my bike and ride the last leg of the commute.) It would easily be worth 5 or 10 dollars to me if I could get a direct and timely ride to and from Fremont for all of the home games as I'd stand to save an hour or more each direction. As far as Caltrain goes, it's not going to be running again on weekends until the Quakes 2005 season (!), so I suggest that a shuttle between Spartan and downtown SJ would not benefit many people who would still be waiting around for another bus to get anywhere.
I think the carpooling is the realistic option. I've carpooled in the past with Bajoro and mlsfan11, and that has worked really well. Maybe the Quakes could assist in organizing carpools from the eastbay