A question for our San Francisco folks

[Redwolf]

We're going up to The City for a concert next weekend (the weekend of the 13th). To avoid having to drive all the way back to Santa Cruz late at night (not to mention parking-and-driving-downtown headaches), we're going to spend the night in my favorite motel out by the zoo. I'm wondering about the best public transit routes to take to get to and from the venue (it's at The Fillmore, on the corner of Fillmore and Geary). As far as getting there goes, I think my best option is to take the L Taraval (which runs right outside the motel) to Powell Street Station, then walk up to Geary and take the 38...does that sound reasonable, or is there a better route?

Coming back after the concert, I'm also concerned about what lines will still be running (the concert may go as late as 1:00 or so), as I don't want to find myself wandering around in the Western Addition looking for a bus in the wee hours of the morning! If I recall correctly, the 38 runs all night, but I don't think the L does (?). I'm wondering if, for that leg, it might not make more sense to just make sure I have a couple of cab companies on my cell.

I used to have MUNI map, but I can't find it. It's also been long enough since I lived in The City (hard to believe it's been over 20 years!), and I'm sure the routes and schedules have changed a lot since then!

Redwolf

[herbivore12]

I've found the Google Transit site to be pretty useful in finding transit options around the Bay Area (something I had to do a lot of over the past week, when the Bay bridge was closed). I took a guess that the motel you were referring to is the Ocean Park Motel (I used to live on Taraval, out towards the zoo), and simply plugged in the name of the motel as the starting point, and Fillmore Auditorium as the ending point, and this is what Google Transit suggests. You can play around with the site if you want to make adjustments, of course. Have fun in the city!

[Edited to fix link. If it doesn't work for you, use the Google Transit url -- http://www.google.com/transit -- and enter the start/end points you prefer. You don't need actual addresses, and can enter in the name of your motel and the Fillmore auditorium, or of a BART/Muni station and your end destination, and it'll work the route out for you.]

[Redwolf]

Cool! That's a handy utility!

I do have one concern, and it may be unwarranted anymore, but I'll still ask it:

When I first visited San Francisco, in 1984, as part of a study tour, we were cautioned to avoid taking the 22 Fillmore, as they'd had a lot of problems with violence on that route. Ever since then, I've gone out of my way to avoid it (which, fortunately, isn't too hard to do in SF!). Does anyone know if it's still considered unsafe?

Yes, btw, it is the Ocean Park we're staying at. I always stay there when I go up for the language immersion weekends at the UICC, and I just love it. It might have been smarter, in some ways, to try to find something closer to The Fillmore, but the OP is so easy to drive to and from, and there's no fighting city traffic or struggling to find parking.

Redwolf

[herbivore12]

Sorry, couldn't tell you about the relative safety of the MUNI lines. The 22 gets mixed reviews on Yelp!, but so does nearly every MUNI route. Sounds like it could at least be . . . interesting. When I lived in SF, I took MUNI all over the place without regard to checking on the route's safety and never had a problem, but maybe I didn't look like an easy mark. That's not to say there weren't plenty of stories to tell about the riders on some of those buses, of course. Life in the city, you know.