Walk from Jack London Square to Ferry Boat

The next time my granddaughter and I go from Chico to SF, we want to see how many modes of transportation we can do in one day. Instead of the bus from Emeryville to SF, we are thinking it would be fun to get off the train in Oakland and walk over to the ferry terminal.

In one day, we would do car, bus, train, boat, and cable car. Maybe throw in a pedicab ride to Fisherman's Wharf.

Google map shows it is a .6 mile walk from the station to the dock which should take about 11 minutes. But it doesn't show the wisdom of walking in that neighborhood. Is it safe during daylight hours?

You should be fine.

Trainmans daughter said:

The next time my granddaughter and I go from Chico to SF, we want to see how many modes of transportation we can do in one day. Instead of the bus from Emeryville to SF, we are thinking it would be fun to get off the train in Oakland and walk over to the ferry terminal.

In one day, we would do car, bus, train, boat, and cable car. Maybe throw in a pedicab ride to Fisherman's Wharf.

Google map shows it is a .6 mile walk from the station to the dock which should take about 11 minutes. But it doesn't show the wisdom of walking in that neighborhood. Is it safe during daylight hours?

Click to expand...

Aloha

During an OTOL Fest in SF I stayed at the Jack London Inn, and took the ferry every day. I had no worries during the hours the boat operated. Very late, or very early morning the area might be dicey.

Enjoy

Take the bus across to the Ferry building in San Francisco. Then take a ferry to somewhere else. I would suggest Sausalito. Nice view of Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and San Francisco itself from the Bay. There are a couple of nice places to eat there. You can then take a Golden Gate Transit bus back across the Golden Gate Bridge. If get off at the south end of the bridge there are some things to see there. From this point, you can take a San Francisco Muni bus toward Pier 39. From that point, you can either take the "F" line street car, which runs "heritage" streetcars from all over the world, including PCC cars from several US cities. This route follows the Embarcadero back to the Ferry Building and then down Market Street. Alternatively, you can take an electric trolley Muni Bus from the vicinity of Pier 39 that goes through Chinatown. Carry on past Chinatown, with or without stopping back to Market Street. There you can get on The "F" line street car, or the Muni Light Rail one level down, or BART two levels down. After these experiences, you can then find one of the cable car lines. If you have the time, you could take BART all the way out to Millbrae and come back on Caltrain. From the Caltrain station at 4th and King Streets, you can get within half a block of walking to the Muni light rail, electric trolley bus, or diesel bus. Muni has a web site that has route maps. Golden Gate transit schedules can also be found on line. In fact, I think all the transit agencies in the SF aera have schedule and fare information available on line.

I would not walk around in Oakland at all. I have been to BART's office there by way of BART and about a 2 block walk, and know several people that work there. That area is not bad, in the daytime, at least. However, the general consensus appears to be that Oakland has no real safe area. There is only dangerous and not so dangerous.

The front cover of the Oakland Tribune, as well as two other Bay Area newspapers, ran a split image of a person half in street clothes and half in a combat uniform and the following story:

Safer to be deployed to a military base in war torn region than survive on Oakland streets
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Oakland in the past nine years. That bleak statistic is important because it closely parallels the toll of American dead from hostile encounters -- 996 -- during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, which began nine years ago this month, costing American taxpayers, by some estimates, roughly $1 billion per month.

In some cases, the killers here used AK-47s, the weapon of choice among guerrilla movements and insurgencies around the world. Dozens of the dead were children.

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http://www.insidebayarea.com/top-stories/ci_16382672

So what your saying is, if I decide to walk to the ferry boat dock, I should be packing heat? Well, I guess I'm OK with that.

Funny. I was in Oakland earlier this year and didn't get killed. In fact, I've lived in cities with murder rates of 100+ per year much of my life. Here in Chicago, there are about as many murders in two years as Oakland has in 8 or 9.

Yet, I still haven't been killed. Not only that, I'd never even think of carrying a serious weapon.

I really don't understand why people choose to live in fear.

I stayed at the Waterfront Hotel in Jack London Square last May.

There are restaraunts along the waters edge and security in the Square boundries. Definitely not a problem during the day & I even walked the Square at night. No Problems! I did take a cab from the station when I arrived, as I too was concerned, but needlessly!

Trainmans daughter said:

The next time my granddaughter and I go from Chico to SF, we want to see how many modes of transportation we can do in one day. Instead of the bus from Emeryville to SF, we are thinking it would be fun to get off the train in Oakland and walk over to the ferry terminal.

In one day, we would do car, bus, train, boat, and cable car. Maybe throw in a pedicab ride to Fisherman's Wharf.

Google map shows it is a .6 mile walk from the station to the dock which should take about 11 minutes. But it doesn't show the wisdom of walking in that neighborhood. Is it safe during daylight hours?

Click to expand...

I much prefer the ferry to BART or bus when going to San Francisco. Driving and especially parking are so rotten in SF that I usually drive to a good parking lot (such as Martinez or Berkeley Amtrak) then take the train to Jack London Square and walk from there to the ferry. I have done this alone (middle-aged female using wheelchair) and with others. Be sure to watch the freight trains street-running as you walk.

Thanks for your input, everybody. I think we will do this next spring or summer when we have lots of daylight hours to do the trip.

I'm not a scaredy-cat by any means. I've walked alone throughout LA, DC, San Francisco, Chicago, etc with no fear. But when I have my granddaughter with me, I have a different attitude. If anything bad happened while I was in charge, no matter how minor, my daughter-in-law would revoke my grandma priviledge. Not kidding!

There are a lot of areas in San Francisco I walk at night, also quite a few area that my wife will walk and some of the women where I work will walk at night. Some good sense and judgment is necessary. Sometimes only a block makes a significant difference in the situation. But, on the Oakland side, I would say daylight and within normal business hours, and pick your areas carefully even with that, otherwise, NONE in Oakland.

It is like the little story about the lion and the gazelle. If the lion loses the chase, he misses a meal. If the gazelle loses the chase, he loses his life. You only get to be wrong on where and when to walk once.