TransitGeek
Service Attendant
I'm booked on the Coast Starlight heading up to the Bay Area for the holidays, getting off at Oakland's Jack London Square station. My plan was to walk from there to the Lake Merritt BART station (and head for Castro Valley), but I'm concerned for a few reasons.
1- Oakland doesn't have a fantastic reputation for safety, and the area around OKJ doesn't look (from Google Earth/Street View) terribly appetizing. The CS is scheduled in around 9 at night. Am I going to be safe walking around there?
2- The CS doesn't have a great reputation for on-time performance. Amtrak's web site puts it at ~35% in October 2008. If 9pm isn't pleasant, what will 10/11/midnight/1am look like? Not to mention that BART stops running at 1.
So my options are a) do like I planned, walk the four or so blocks to Lake Merrit, B) take the AC Transit 72 into downtown Oakland and get a BART train at 19th street, which means less time on the street but I have to change trains to get to Castro Valley, or c) beg a family member to pick my wife and I up, which I don't want to do because most of my family is grumpy after 9pm.
If there's anyone who's seen OKJ at night around, what do you think?
1- Oakland doesn't have a fantastic reputation for safety, and the area around OKJ doesn't look (from Google Earth/Street View) terribly appetizing. The CS is scheduled in around 9 at night. Am I going to be safe walking around there?
2- The CS doesn't have a great reputation for on-time performance. Amtrak's web site puts it at ~35% in October 2008. If 9pm isn't pleasant, what will 10/11/midnight/1am look like? Not to mention that BART stops running at 1.
So my options are a) do like I planned, walk the four or so blocks to Lake Merrit, B) take the AC Transit 72 into downtown Oakland and get a BART train at 19th street, which means less time on the street but I have to change trains to get to Castro Valley, or c) beg a family member to pick my wife and I up, which I don't want to do because most of my family is grumpy after 9pm.
If there's anyone who's seen OKJ at night around, what do you think?