🇺🇸 San Francisco · Getting around

Transport and the shape of the city in San Francisco

One card covers Muni, BART, Caltrain and the ferries, and the hills and the bridges make the map lie about how long anything takes.

Get started in San Francisco

The thing people get wrongMuni and BART are separate systems with separate fares that happen to share a card and, downtown, a station building. Riding four stops across the city centre can cost quite different amounts depending on which of the two you get on.

Clipper

Clipper is the regional card, available as a physical card or in a phone wallet, and it covers Muni, BART, Caltrain, AC Transit and the ferries across the whole Bay Area. Fares differ by operator: Muni charges a flat fare with a transfer window, while BART and Caltrain charge by distance. A Muni monthly pass is worth it for daily riders, and a more expensive version adds BART travel within the city limits.

  • One Clipper card or phone wallet covers every Bay Area operator.
  • Muni: flat fare, with free transfers within a time window.
  • BART and Caltrain: distance-based, so the same trip costs different amounts each way of the bay.
  • The Muni monthly pass comes in a Muni-only version and a more expensive one including BART within San Francisco.

Muni, BART and the regional rail

Muni runs buses, the Metro light rail, historic streetcars and the cable cars, and it covers the city densely but not quickly. BART is the fast option along the Market Street spine and under the bay to Oakland and Berkeley, and it also reaches SFO directly. Caltrain runs down the peninsula to Silicon Valley and has been electrified, which made it substantially faster and more frequent than its reputation.

Bikes, hills and robotaxis

The bike network has improved considerably and the flat corridor along Market Street and the Valencia and Embarcadero routes make cycling realistic; the hills mean route choice matters more here than in most cities, and electric bikes change the calculation entirely. Bay Wheels is the docked bike-share scheme. Uber and Lyft operate everywhere, and driverless taxis are now an ordinary part of the city's traffic.

Driving, parking and the bridges

Residential parking permits are issued by area and limit how long non-permit holders can park on your street; street cleaning schedules generate tickets constantly and are posted on every block. Bridge tolls are collected electronically, and the Bay Bridge is charged in one direction only. Traffic in and out of the city at peak hours is heavy enough that transit is usually faster despite the transfers.

  • Residential permit parking is applied for by area, with proof of address and vehicle registration.
  • Read the street cleaning signs on your block; the tickets are frequent and expensive.
  • SFO is on BART; Oakland connects to BART by a short shuttle link.

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