Do You Know the Way to San Ramon? A Photographic Odyssey

It's Saturday afternoon and we're almost ready to hit the road for our car-free adventure in suburbia. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself; the first challenge is for Susan to extricate her bike from our tiny subterranean garage.

Yes, today is the day we officially cross the line into "challenge" territory. A couple of my co-workers invited us to their housewarming party in suburban San Ramon, and another co-worker (the same fellow who injured his knee in our last photo essay) generously offered us a lift. Our house is practically on the way for them, so normally we would have said "yes" without a second thought, but the challenge seems to have awakened a competitive instinct we didn't even know we had. The journey would be 51 round-trip miles, which would blow right through our 20-mile goal, even with the 50% carpool discount. Yes, we could have used one of our "zero-mile days," but we didn't want to risk using them up too early in the month, especially if there was a halfway-decent alternative. We decided to decline the ride and set forth on our own, car free.

Of course, we didn't just jump right into this decision, which will undoubtedly come as quite a shock to those who know our personalities. I began my research with the 511 Trip Planner, which suggested taking a bus to Fruitvale BART, then BART to Dublin/Pleasanton, then another bus to our destination…on Friday night. The return trip? Monday morning. When we showed up on Friday with our sleeping bags, I'm sure our hosts would have understood, once we explained the Car-Free Challenge and all. Yeah, right.

Next, I tried Google Transit, which also suggested that we take the bus to BART to Dublin/Pleasanton. However, Google Transit had a very creative suggestion for the last leg of the trip, from the BART station to our destination: "Drive." I assure you, I am not making this up. Sounds like a great plan, but I'm not exactly sure where we are supposed to obtain the vehicle. Maybe we could steal one from the huge BART parking lot, then go on a "Grand Theft Auto: San Ramon" thrill ride. Um…yeah. Next plan!

It turns out that there is a bus that runs from the BART station to near our destination, but it does not run on weekends. It's a 3.1-mile trip, which would take over an hour on foot. There appeared to be a bike trail that would take us almost all the way there, but Google Street View shows the trail dead-ending with a construction barricade right at the San Ramon city limit. We decided that we could either tough it out on the four-lane road or ride on the sidewalk or in the dirt. Armed with printed maps (just in case) and an iPhone with GPS, we decide to set out on our bikes.

The trip from Alameda to the Fruitvale BART station proves challenging. There are no bike lanes from Broadway in Alameda to the start of Fruitvale Ave. in Oakland, which means choosing between riding either in four lanes of 35 MPH traffic or on sidewalks too narrow to allow us to pass pedestrians safely. We steel our nerves and opt for the roadway, and we are pleasantly surprised that nobody yells or honks at us.

After a ride down the bike lane on Fruitvale Ave., over rough pavement, across railroad tracks, and through confusing intersections, we arrive safely at the Fruitvale BART station. After a ride in the World's Slowest Elevator, which is barely big enough to hold our bicycles, we reach the platform just in time to see our train receding far into the distance. Now we play the waiting game.

We see a number of fellow cyclists boarding and alighting the trains that follow. It's a fine day for it!

Finally, our Dublin/Pleasanton train beep-beep-beeps its way into the station.

We board the train, and we're not quite sure what to do with our bikes. We found ourselves wishing for something like the swell bike racks we saw on the light rail system in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Eventually we make ourselves comfortable, or at least as comfortable as we can while juggling bicycles and cameras.

Some of our fellow passengers seem to have made themselves a little too comfortable.

Now that the BART extension to the international terminal of SFO is complete, I guess people naturally assume BART also has those luxury flat seats you find on trans-Pacific flights.

Ah, there's nothing like seeing California the way it was meant to be seen: from the middle of a freeway, through a dirty window!

Neither of us notice this Victorian house as we speed past; we only see it later, when we look through our photos. In all likelihood, this house had similar neighbors that fell victim to the freeway, a story that was repeated mile after mile in blocks-wide swaths. Putting aside questions of whether or not it was worth it, I wonder how many people today realize what had to be sacrificed to bring cars from the far-flung suburbs into the hearts of all our major cities.

After a relatively short and uneventful journey through the brown landscape of Contra Costa County, we arrive at our destination: the split-personality station of Dublin/Pleasanton.

After the station agent was kind enough to free me and my bicycle from an unusually fast-closing fare gate, we head out on a bike trail called the Iron Horse Trail, which follows an old railroad right of way.  At Dougherty Rd. we leave the Iron Horse Trail and join the bike path that we believe will take us to the San Ramon city limit.

A row of solar-powered streetlights alongside the trail catches our eye. 

Wildlife is also plentiful along the trail. These little critters zip back and forth across the path in front of us.

Our map was wrong, but in a good way. We are pleased to find that the barricade is gone and the trail has been extended into San Ramon! 

Here the bike trail ends, for now. The last stretch is apparently so new that the pedestrian signals at the intersection are not yet functional.

After a short ride on the street, we reach our destination. That wasn't so hard!

Here is the house that is to be warmed. The garage is much more capacious than ours, as is the rest of the house. 

We eat, we drink, we admire.

After eating, drinking, and talking our fill, the time to leave rolls around.  It's time to whip out the maps for a little conference with our friendly host.

On the Iron Horse Trail on the way back, we notice this sign: "PLANNED FUTURE EXTENSION OF SCARLETT DR TO DUBLIN BLVD AND WIDENING TO 4 LANES."  More roads!  Wider roads!  Frankly, my dear City of Dublin, we don't care for it.

I pause to soak up the ambiance of the area surrounding the Dublin/Pleasanton BART station.  OK, that's enough.

On the BART ride back, a sea of red tile roofs.  We hope they left some spaces for people to walk between those dream haciendas.

We race with the traffic on I-580 and, for the most part, lose.  Our brief victory in a construction zone brings back memories of riding high-speed rail.

As the sun sinks in the west, we pedal off from Fruitvale BART station.

Oh, for a bigger garage.  But we knew the tradeoffs when we chose to live where we do.  We are happy with our small but conveniently located home, and hope that our friends will continue to enjoy their home on the other end of the BART and bike route to San Ramon. 

The end.

Epilogue

Thank you, Jane and Eve, for pointing out some major omissions in our post: mileage and times!  We were so busy documenting every tree, building, and furry critter along the way that we completely forgot the vital statistics:

Biking time to/from Fruitvale BART = 15 minutes

Station time at BART = 20 minutes (fare gate, elevator, and waiting)

Travel time on BART = 30 minutes

Biking time to/from Dublin/Pleasanton BART = 25 minutes (not counting photography and wildlife appreciation)

Total car-free distance for the day = 56 miles

Distance for one-way trip = 28 miles

Total time for one-way trip = 1 hour, 30 minutes

Minimum driving time for one-way trip = 33 minutes (no traffic)

Maximum driving time for one-way trip = 45 minutes (with traffic)

So, it takes two to three times longer than driving, but it's much better exercise and you see a lot more!