Leaving your bike at a BART station (San Francisco, Oakland: home, neighborhoods)

[SunDevil1212]

Hello,

I will soon be accepting a job offer from a company in Berkeley that is walking distance from the downtown Berkeley BART station. I do not plan on bringing a car with me so I'll be reliant on public transit.

I want to live in San Francisco, so ideally I would find a place within walking distance from a BART station....but after speaking with some friends it sounds like housing near a BART station can be difficult to find unless you're in the Tenderloin (a neighborhood I'd prefer to avoid).

In order to hopefully expand the geographic range I could search for a place, I was thinking I could bike from home to the BART station each day....I've taken the BART before on my prior visits but do not recall any bike racks...although the BART website makes it seem like they do exist.

So my questions: How big are these bike racks? Do they exist at every stop in SF? Do the spots fill up quickly? Are you required to register your bike or pay any sort of "rent" to use a spot? Any insight would be appreciated!

I know MUNI is also an option but it seems to run fairly slow and of course biking is cheaper.

Also, if I were to do this, any suggestions on neighborhoods? Obviously I could use Google Maps to find out how far my bike route would be, but I have no visibility into whether there are decent bike paths or lanes and whether I'd be dealing with any hills or not. As an example, could I bike up Market St to the Civic Center BART from say, the Lower Haight without fear of getting run over by a truck?

Thanks!

[ImRandy]

These links have a little information you might be interested in.

BART - Bikes on BART
BART - Bike Rules
BART BikeStations

[SunDevil1212]

Thank you!

So has anyone used the Embarcadero self-service bike station? It says the capacity is 96 spots....does it ever reach full-capacity on the weekdays?

[skyao]

unfortunately, i think its going to be tough to park there as those parking spots fill up fast. Biking from lower haight to market is doable but parking your bike isnt going to be easy from my experience.

How far do you want to live from BART? it may be more efficient to take a bus or muni to bart instead of bike because of the rainy season. You can live in the mission and be close to bart. Glen Park is also an option but farther out.

Make sure its a beater bike that you do not mind gets stolen as bike theft is a big problem here.

[Joe_Ryder]

Bicycle theft is an issue in the entire bay area. If you can get a locker you have a better chance of riding home at the end of the day.

Bicycle Lockers in SF.
There may be more. I live in Oakland where there are a number of privately owned lockers but they're on a 1st come basis. Not sure about SF.
Good luck!

[mayorhaggar]

Live near the Mission or Glen Park BART stations and you wouldn't even need a bike. The area near Dolores Park is really cool and at the most a 20 minute walk to 16th and Mission BART. Or live in Berkeley or Oakland.