How bad is the traffic from Palo Alto up to SFO at 4-5 PM on a Friday? Am I better off ditching the car in PA and doing the Caltrain/BART combo?
Can you use car pool? How much time do you have? Can be bad, and it starts with just getting to Hwy 101 if you're starting out in downtown Palo Alto.
No carpool. It's more an issue of having been working since 5 AM that morning, and not wanting the added stress of stop and go once I'm on the 101. It's 50 bucks extra for the one way rental, so I'm trying to figure if that's worth it.
Having personally done this many a Friday, take the 280 to the 380 and you will be fine as the 101 is a mess to get to and be on that time of day. As for the caltrain/bart combo, it will almost certainly take longer even during rush hour.
280 is not only one of the prettiest highways in the country, it's also the secret way to get up the peninsula quickly at most times. I'm so glad I live so close to it.
Caltrain/Bart will take about 2 hrs from personal experience from Palo Alto at that hour. They don't run the direct connect at that hour. I had that batman when I went to CLE earlier this year.
I'd like to know when the 101 is not a mess personally... I remember staying at the W Silicon Valley a couple of years back and the traffic to/from SFO was as bad as I've seen it in NYC. The advantage of the 101 of course being that In-N-Out is closer than if you take 280/380
Personally, I'd take the Samtrans KX bus if I wanted to avoid driving and could make it work schedule-wise. http://www.samtrans.com/schedulesandmaps/timetables/KX.html It's also a good indication for how long it would likely take to get from Palo Alto to SFO -- the bus departing Palo Alto at 4:46pm bus leaves the first SFO stop at 6:04pm. 1 hr 18 mins. Other times of the day it's just 1 hr 10 mins.
6 am Saturday mornings isn't too bad in my experience It was also much better in late 2008 and 2009 and after the dot com crash.
