How to Book Train Travel from San Francisco to Oakland

The quick trip from San Francisco to Oakland is amazingly convenient and inexpensive at around $3. With over 10 Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) stations within San Francisco alone, finding a departure train is easy.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A computer with internet access.

Book a BART Ticket from San Francisco to Oakland

1. Know how a BART ticket works. It's used like a debit card, with a certain amount of money on the card that's subtracted for each fare.. Expect to pay a little over three bucks for the trip from San Francisco to Oakland.

2. Find travel information, such as departure times to Oakland and BART maps, via your iPod with the BART Quickplanner. This software can be downloaded from the BART website (see the "Resources" section below).

3. Order a ticket from San Francisco to Oakland online at the BART website. You can also book a ticket from an automatic ticket machine that accepts coins and $1, $5, $10 and $20 bills, or use a credit card to charge your ticket at a Charge-A-Ticket (CAT) machine, found in all BART stations.

4. You can buy a BART ticket from certain retailers and grocers in San Francisco, along with your ice cream or prescription medication.

Choose an Oakland Destination

5. Choose to get off the train at the first Oakland stop, MacArthur. If you are just in the city for the day and don't want to carry a heavy backpack, take advantage of one of the 30 lockers.

6. Get off at the next Oakland stop, 19th St. Oakland, if your destination is near 1900 Broadway or the surrounding area.

7. Travel to 12th St. Oakland City Center to enjoy a day of shopping or to meet for a business function.

8. Enjoy the many conveniences offered at the Lake Merritt stop. There are 32 lockers to store your baggage, and if you are continuing travel from San Francisco by car, you can pick up your car from the available parking lot at this station. There are various parking permit options: a monthly reserved permit, a single day reserved permit, extended weekend permits, a midday permit and a long term/airport permit.

9. The Fruitvale station on East 12th Street offers parking and locker conveniences.

10. Travel to Oakland's last stop, the Coliseum/Oakland Airport station, to continue travel by airplane or train. This station connects to an Amtrak station via a pedestrian bridge, and bus shuttles travel from here to the Oakland airport frequently.

[c-to-the-m]

on 5/31/2009 Nobody calls taking BART "Booking train travel", I suspect this author does not live in the Bay Area.