Let’s Go Giants

San Francisco parade on Wednesday to fete baseball World Series Champion Giants expected to draw one million. Local transportation officials advise celebrants to use public transportation, and buy your transit tickets today to avoid the crush of last second purchasers.

You can ride your bike to the parade, too, if you want, though navigating through thick crowds might be a challenge.

Several area transit agencies will add service to help meet anticipated demand.

  • Golden Gate Bridge District has scheduled additional morning ferry trips from Sausalito and Larkspur and will run additional ferries as needed. Golden Gate bus service from Marin into San Francisco will detour around the parade route, and they warn afternoon trips will likely be slowed by heavy traffic throughout San Francisco after the parade.
  • Caltrain will run additional trains on Wednesday morning out of San Jose. They warn riders that the parking lots at most Caltrain stations are routinely full, so don’t expect to find parking if you drive to Caltrain.

    After the parade, southbound trains from San Francisco will depart when full, with no baby bullet service Wednesday evening. Gilroy trains will run per usual but will likely arrive late.

    Ambassadors will be on hand to help direct newbies at San Jose Diridon station in the morning and San Francisco 4th & King in the afternoon.

    I anticipate the bike car will be filled to capacity on all northbound morning trains at San Jose Diridon. Sunnyvale passengers might get lucky, but I’ll guess anybody north of there will be out of luck.

  • BART will run every train possible at maximum length and at commute time frequency all day on Wednesday. BART advises that parking lots will fill early and they will enforce parking lot rules and restrictions.
  • All SF Muni Metro trains will stop at Civic Center station for the celebration and Parade, as well as at Embarcadero, Montgomery and Powell stations for the parade. The SFMTA will schedule six additional Metro shuttles to supplement the existing Metro service. The additional service will begin at approximately 10 a.m. and continue until the event clears at the Civic Center.
  • No word on if Blue & Gold or WETA ferries will run additional boats across the Bay.

All transit agencies advise riders to purchase tickets ahead of time to avoid the crush of last second ticket buyers at stations. Caltrain will make day passes good for Wednesday travel available from their ticket vending machines (TVM) after 5 PM Tuesday. If you have a Clipper card, load it up now.

During the last Giants parade in 2010, 80,000 people rode Caltrain as the commuter rail service suspended fare enforcement due to the sheer crush of passengers. Caltrain says they will add conductors and have an expedited way to check tickets, so don’t count on a free ride this year.

BART’s all time ridership record also occurred on parade day in 2010, when 522,200 took BART into San Francisco.

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