AC Transit F Transbay Bus

Somedays it shows up, somedays it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s early, sometimes it’s late. Sometimes the drivers are normal, good drivers who get us home safe and secure. Other times there are drivers who drive erratically, talk to themselves or have anger issues. Most of the customers are ghetto, talk on their phone the whole ride home very loudly, have their music up too loud where the whole bus can hear it through their headphones or a mom changes her kid’s stinky ass diaper in the middle of the bus — mind you there is no ventilation/​AC. Too bad this is the only bus I can take to my neighborhood :(

Grumpiest driver I’ve seen so far since I moved to SF. Yelled rudely to an Asian tourist who needed help finding his way. Definitely not ok. Driver didn’t even bother to stop at the right place, leaving riders unsafely stuck between the rail and the bus. Not anyone’s fault you hate your job but yourself.

The F line deserves negative stars in my opinion. 2 hours to get from 16^th & Mission to the very first stop @ Bay Street in Emeryville. The horrors grew worse with the evening commute. 4 busses went by before one stopped in 2 hours .
Only the final bus stopped to pick up passengers. 2 HOURS AT ONE BUS STOP!
Sanity returned when we landed in SF. Metro ran smoothly & I was home in 20 minutes. SHAME AC TRANSIT! I pity the people in the East Bay

Usually I’m not that impressed by AC transit or by any means of public transportation in general. Public transportation is a means to an end and I’m not quite the biggest fan of sitting next to individuals with funny odors or next to those who have to be touching when they sit next to you. Somehow, there’s a lot of people that don’t understand the concept of personal hygiene and like to sit next to me.
But this review isn’t about me.
On the 4^th of July, probably one of the worst days to ride public transportation, AC transit surprised me.
Sure, the bus didn’t leave exactly at 4:40pm. It actually left around 4:50pm. But the bus shepherds (what I call them because they herd the buses as if the buses were goats) made sure that everyone who wanted to get on the bus from SF to the East Bay got a seat on the bus. And trust me, there must have been around 50+ people in line.
As a past youth sports coach, gotta love the team spirit!

F bus to the Castro district. My friend and I had to run from three different F train stops to find the correct one for the catro district. They need better signage in San Fran. Most people who got on the bus didnt pay… not sure if San Fran is lax with paying but wow that’s crazy but WEEEEEEeeeeee free. Bus was well a BUS! Had some homeless people and had some locals. The fare was $ 2.

My magic carpet ride to/​from the city

When my evening BART commute got delayed by protest after protest, I gave AC Transit a try and now prefer it to BART. I’m guaranteed a seat every night and there’s no one to give a side eye to. After a long day of work, AC Transit gives me the time and space to unwind.
I stick to BART in the morning because there’s more trains to catch, but to get home, I suck up the extra cash (55 cents I think) for ACT.
Drivers are pleasant and in the 6 months I’ve taken the FS, I’ve only had one major delay (30 minutes late getting home).

The F bus drops me off really close to my home. Much closer than if I took BART. The outgoing schedule is not very convenient so I prefer the casual carpool but the SF to Oakland bus is just perfect!

I’m really torn about the AC Transit F bus.
On the one hand, catching it at the Temporary Transbay Terminal in San Francisco is a snap; it leaves on time; if there’s no traffic on the Bay Bridge, it gets you to the East Bay more quickly than BART (surprisingly), and it actually does a loop around UC Berkeley, so if you’re on campus, you don’t have to walk Downtown, and if you’re coming from San Francisco, you don’t have to walk up the hill from Downtown Berkeley to wherever you’re going on campus; you can just get off where it’s most convenient for you.
But this bus definitely has its drawbacks. First of all, it’s $ 4.20 no matter where you go. Four-​twenty! That’s a straight-​up ripoff. BART from Downtown San Francisco to Downtown Berkeley is $ 3.65, and that’s expensive. Yes, there is added value in being taken directly to campus, but not fifty-​five cents’ worth. And I was going to Emeryville, so although I only rode a little bit more than half the line, I was still paying the same amount as the people going all the way to Berkeley. The stops in Emeryville are confusing and ridiculously hidden. The confusing part is more Emeryville’s fault than AC Transit’s, but it would be really helpful to make the stops’ locations clearer. And don’t even get me started on the San Francisco-​direction «stop» in Emeryville. I don’t like to use scare quotes, but I’m doing it this time because this isn’t really a stop. There’s no bench. There’s no shelter. There’s not even anywhere to stand in the shade. Honestly, this bus runs every thirty minutes, so every one of its stops should have a shelter. I guess it’s safe because it’s in front of the Emeryville Police Department, but that’s a temporary «building» as well (actually, trailers), so it all feels thrown together. Finally, although you get to bypass the toll part of the Bay Bridge, it can take a long time to get back to the city if there’s traffic, like there was today because of the 49ers game. So in terms of speed, you live by the bridge and you die by the bridge.
I had the same driver both times today, and he was courteous and prompt. It amazed me how empty this bus was on a Sunday, especially since the 5-​Fulton I caught afterward got packed real quick.

Super awesome that this bus takes you to San Francisco for free! Well assuming that you are a Cal student and that you have a bus pass of course.

I’ve been taking the F-​Bus to San Francisco since 1998, except during bouts of unemployment. The bus stop at Market and Stanford is around the corner from my house. It takes 25 minutes to get to the Transbay Terminal, which is two blocks from my office. The commute time is about the same as taking BART from Ashby to Montgomery, and I don’t have the 15-​minute walk to BART, which is good as I am recovering from a broken ankle and not as fully mobile as I would like to be.
Weird as it sounds, the single-​trip bus fare is actually more expensive than the BART fare – $ 4,00 for the bus vs. $ 3.50 for BART from Ashby to Montgomery. But I load my TransLink card with the 31-​day pass, so the bus turns out to be less expensive – and I have unlimited rides so I can stop off at Trader Joe’s in Emeryville on the way home.
But the very best thing about the F-​Bus is the drivers. Specifically the guy who drives the bus that leaves the TransBay Terminal at 7:10 p.m. I leave work late just so I can ride his bus. He is friendly and courteous and announces all of the stops himself instead of using those annoying canned computerized announcements.
The bus is SO much better than BART. You can open the windows and watch them build the new Bay Bridge. Try it, you’ll like it.

Yeah, you saw that right. 5 stars for public transportation. From the East Bay. On a bus. From a bus hater. Clean, fast, drops off a block from my house and gets you to the city with views and 3G service. Not crowded. Great BART alternative. Give it a try.

This is a good alternative to the BART when I do not feeling like shelling out roughly $ 5 to commute home with a load of laundry and my weekend homework from Cal. Although convenient, spotting and waiting for the F to run might take a while as the service is not frequent as you might hope. I like that it passes by Bay Street, IKEA, Michael’s, and several other stores.
The downside of this convenience is the speed. It takes about double the time for me to get into the financial district/​downtown versus the BART. If I’m not in a hurry and there happens to be a F boarding, then I will take it.

Fight On! So my Trojans won the football game against Cal and I was in a particularly good mood… until I reached the Downtown Berkeley BART station to try to take the BART back to the city. I saw a giant mob of hundreds of people who apparently all wanted to do the same.
But obviously, I’m not stupid enough to join the mob and wait for over an hour just to get onto BART. No no, of course not. I got out of the BART station and onto the F Transbay bus. I enjoyed a scenic crossing of the Bay Bridge and a comfortable seat on the bus. Some 40 minutes later, I was in San Francisco while most of the people in the mob were probably still pushing each other around.
Thank goodness for Plan B.

I took the F bus daily to work in SF after I graduated from Berkeley. My 8:10 bus crew felt like a small family: the same friendly faces each day and the same friendly bus driver. I loved my bus driver — he looked like Santa Claus. He would greet everyone individually as they boarded the bus and sometimes made funny personal announcements — like announcing that it was Album Collectors Appreciation Day and that he was an avid album collector.
I miss my F bus family! (I was laid off so no more SF work for me)
Also, when I was in Berkeley, I thought any Berkeley student who took BART to get to somewhere near Embarcadero/​downtown SF was an idiot. You dumbass, you can get there for FREE with your AC bus pass. Come on!

This old staple is the cheapest way for Berkeley students to get to SF. Forget BART, which will cost you dearly and drive you through a noisy tunnel, and take this spiffy bus that has great views of the Bay and the City too from the bridge. It very punctually leaves every 30 minutes from Telegraph and Bancroft, and also every 30 minutes from Transbay in SF. Nights, weekends, doesn’t really make a difference, it’s pretty much every 30 minutes. It’ll cost 3.50 if you don’t have the student pass. In that case you might as well take the BART, since it’s twice as fast and it comes more frequently. Some cool stops along the way to SF: Berkeley Bowl, the shops near Ashby BART, and the Emeryville shopping center (I’ve never been there). Watch out though, you can’t take the F on the way BACK from the shopping center! One time I saw some college students with a giant plant they had bought from IKEA. They were waiting at the wrong stop to go back. Once the bus spits you out in SF, you will feel like you are in the twilight zone. It is not the best side of SF. But just walk one block and you’ll be back among civilization on Market. Also from Transbay you can catch a number of buses that will take you all over SF, such as the 18-​Mission and the 38-​Geary. It’s great to get on the 38-​Geary before all the crowds pile on. Same for the 18 too actually.
On the way back, the view is not as good, because you’re on the bottom of the bridge. Furthermore, at night, the drivers like to drive REALLY SLOWLY. I’ve been on the bus so many times where it seems like they are literally trying to drive as SLOW as they can. So strange.