A Beginner's Guide to BART: Parking edition

I find that people who've never or rarely use BART are often a little nervous when about to embark on a BART voyage. Here are some tips.

Before you go:
1. Visit www.bart.gov
Use the trip finder application to figure out which stations are closest to your departure and destination. You can look up directions to the station and then from your station to your destination. You also can input the desired departure or arrival time and it will tell you which line to take and at what time it departs.

2. If you can help it, try to avoid line transfers your first time. I still check out and miss my transfers (it happened last week). It's a lot less stressful if you know how long your trip will take and use that to guage when you are getting close.

3. Give yourself a good buffer every time. Your first time, if you plan on driving there and parking, I recommend you plan on arriving at least 20-30 minutes ahead of time. During commute hours, parking can take forever (I one time spent 25 minutes looking for parking at the North Berkeley station only to end up parking half a mile away). Once you get comfortable with the trip, you can lessen it to ten minutes prior. Take it from me, there's really nothing quite like sprinting across the parking lot to watch your train pull away.

4. The parking lot or structure....watch yourself and your car!! People either drive like bats out of Hell or clueless 15 year olds during driver's training. People who are late will scream down the aisles and will only hesitate when they see the fear in your eyes as they're running you over. They will tailgate you as you search for a spot. On the flipside, if you're late, you will inevitably be stuck behind the person who stops in the middle of the aisle to drop someone off or has stopped, gripping the steering wheel in fear, because they just realized they're headed the wrong direction down the lane.

5. If you are physically able, I strongly recommend taking the stairs in the parking structures. Anyone can access elevators in the parking structures, which sometimes results in homeless people spending the night in there. You risk encountering anything from a bad smell to urine. Admittedly, the El Cerrito del Norte BART station's elevator isn't usually that bad (or so I hear, I usually opt for the stairs). Plus it's good for you to take the stairs. Little bit of exercise plus no urine = win-win.