i plan to finish my college years in san francisco and was wondering if there was plenty of traffic there. i live in hawaii and the longest you get stuck intraffic here is twenty minutes. i hope its not really that bad where you get stuck for hours.

 

Take BART. Traffic isn't as bad as it was a few years ago, but it's still pretty bad compared to just about anywhere else short of LA or maybe Chicago.

 

it totally depends on where you wind up residing relative to where you gotta get to.

I am in Berkeley, across the bay from SF, I live 1 mile from work, so I can walk or ride a bike in like 10 minutes.

I work with people who live as far away as Napa (45 miles) and Modesto (like 75+) and those guys spend a couple hours each way on a good day, it can be twice that on a bad day.

 

From this story on traffic rankings for various cities:

So be careful where you live relative to where you work/go to school. I live in Fremont and work in Berkeley, but I live next to the BART station so that I don't have to drive.

 

It all depends on the time of day you're driving, and where you're headed to/from.

Normally on a weekend it takes me about 2 and a half hours to get from Sacramento to San Francisco. I had the misfortune of heading there on a weekday a few years ago - took 6 hours

I left my house at 4am and didn't get to where I was going (near the airport) till 10am. Worst drive ever. I went through two FULL cds in 3 miles.

 

There is a crapload of traffic here. A car is pretty much useless in SF proper. You can go 50 miles from SF and still find traffic jams on weekdays.

 

crap man sf to tahoe is one big traffic jam on friday.

 

unless you know the backroads between fairfield and Sac....Although I am not familiar with traffic on 80 between SF and FF, I can imagine it tho.

he he he....I love waving to all the ppl stuck in traffic at the 680/80 interchange as I am cruising down the backroads by passing about 80% of it all.....

-Ted

 

ya i know all the backroads live din FF for 8 years.
ahah

 

Lots of folks have offered up good advice about living as close to your school or work as you can afford. It's also as expensive as Oahu to live in the Bay Area. If you don't have rental housing or a dorm lined up, better start looking for a roommate(s).

Are you shipping your car over?

--
0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

If your going to SF state you should apply for living on campus at the new student apartments. I was there as a visiting student from SJSU the first semester they opened in 2001. It beats living in a dorm and I believe it's roughly the same cost. That way you won't have to commute because like the others have stated it's no fun. Another good option would be living in Daly City, it's less expensie and S.F's neighboring city. Commute wouldn't be so bad....parking another story.

 

Traffic a pain, parking's an even bigger pain. Compared to S.F., Honolulu's very manageable. The rest of O'ahu and all the other islands for that matter are a breeze compared to S.F.
Where are you going to school here? If you told us, we could probably give you better advice on where to live, drive, and park.

 

i plan to go to the University of the Pacific. i wont be going there for another year or two but i just wanted to see how the traffic is there. i got stuck in L.A once during rush hour and it was horrible. l would never live there. if i dont get acepted at the university of the pacific, my backup plan is UNLV and i know there is barely any traffic there.

 

That's in Stockton. If you attend UOP, you don't want to live in the Bay Area - too far to drive. Stockton is like any other large central valley town, with its good and bad areas.

--
0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

San Francisco is not close to University of Pacific. It's like 1.5-2 hours away from SF if I remember correctly. I would just live in the dorms over there. They'll have plenty of space. If you get accepted over there, just live in the school dorms and when you're done with school and want to move near SF, start looking for a place to live then. I can't imagine you living in SF and having to commute all those hours back and forth just to go to school.