Originally Posted by
ctporter
thanks, I was trying to see the viability of driving down to SJC compared to crossing a bridge to get to SFO plus, what is available at the airport once I arrive. Still seems to be SFO as the best best for me. (My job is in Orinda, the hotel will be in Walnut Creek which hopefully will have places to eat. I am not afraid per se of public transport, it is typically cheaper to rent a car due to our corp discount. For leisure, when my husband comes along with me, we use Bart (or the local equivalent) most of the time.
In terms of traffic, though nowadays it is different but traffic is getting worse daily:
so you don't care so much about traffic when you are flying in to the Bay Area, I presume cause you don't have time constraints, and SFO is quicker and you can always do a rental car one-way (eg SFO to SJC), so I'd recommend flying in to SFO.
For Friday if you would be leaving Walnut Creek I'd still recommend going to SFO vs SJC, for SJC you can take the 680 but going in to SFO in the afternoon shouldn't be bad, even crossing the bridge, because most people are heading out of SF.
One difference is if you care about the public transit business for SFO you need to take the airtrain which is a small automated train, whereas in SJC you can just walk (presuming you are flying AS or WN) from the rental car center to the terminal (literally just cross the street).