Travel and CA schools

turtlerock
Mon, 06 Jan 2014 13:40:06 +0000

Bart doesn’t go south to Santa Clara, and Caltrain doesn’t pass through SFO, so you will need to take multiple modes of transportation to get between SFO and SCU.

And it definitely takes longer than an hour for the whole trip one way, especially if you have to wait even just a couple minutes between transfers of Caltrain/BART/city bus - closer to 2 hours than 1 hour.

For example, the Caltrain schedule leaves the Santa Clara station (which is right near SCU) and doesn’t arrive at the San Bruno or Millbrae stations until 50 to 60 minutes later (ex. leaves SC at 9:15am arrives at Millbrae at 10:13 or San Bruno at 10:17). Then you’d have to take the city bus, taxi, or BART Pittsburgh/Bay Point line into SFO - easily another 20 - 30 minutes according to the BART website of real time departures from Millbrae or San Bruno going to SF Airport. You can drive your own vehicle in 40 minutes though!

Caltrain does have “limited stop” service and “Baby Bullet” trains, but they don’t look any better on timing. The “limited stops” takes ~50 minutes from my same example above and the “Baby Bullets” don’t even stop/depart at Santa Clara station. You would need to get to the SJ station downtown, near the SAP Center (the old HP Pavillion) to take one of those, possibly adding to travel time.

As for other schools: I second LMU and USF. USF will be the easiest to get to SFO, plus it’s a very nice campus if your D is into the city atmosphere. I’d also second St. Mary’s in Moraga. The Orinda BART station isn’t too far from campus and it’s a direct shot to SFO from there - although about 2 hours since you’d be coming from the other side of the bay.

Best of luck.