docbert

You only NEED the the airport parking permit for weekends if the weekend falls within the period you're booking the parking permit for, and in that case it's NOT free. eg, if you get an airport parking permit for Friday->Monday, you'll pay for 4 days. Get one for Saturday->Monday and they will NOT charge for the weekends, so you just pay for one day. Saturday -> Sunday a week later is 5 days, as both of the weekends are free, but Saturday -> Monday a week later is 8 days (first weekend free, but the second in the middle of the reservation is not, so you pay for Monday->Sunday, plus the next Monday, which is 8 days).

If you pay the daily rate for Friday ($3), then you can either get an airport parking permit covering Saturday -> Monday (in which case Saturday/Sunday are free, so it costs $7) or get one just covering Monday (still $7) - the result is exactly the same as parking is free over the weekend with no time limits.

The only catch with only paying the daily rate is that if you arrive before 10am you can't park in the "Permit" areas which you can if you've paid for airport parking for that day. If you arrive after 10am you can park anywhere.

econ

Easy. From Milbrae BART, just walk over Hwy 101 to avail yourself of the Aloft/Westin shuttle.

Doable, but still at least 30-40 min walk. 5-10 min shorter to Long Term Parking where you can also catch a shuttle.

Zorak

I finally rode the SFO bus route this morning.

As docbert mentioned, the bus stop is on the West Plaza side. There are signs on the upper level directing you which way to go.

It seems like the route might be sort of an overlay on route 38? The bus that arrived was flashing both 38 and SFO on it's signs. (There was also a generic unmarked tour coach that picked up passengers from the same stop, probably one of the tech buses)

Zorak

I notice the BART Purple line is a thing now? In fact I first saw it in Google Maps directions as early as March (Google search finds references going back at least to February) but the train I got on at the time ended up being a regular Richmond train so I didn't think much of it at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SFO%E2%80%93Millbrae_line

"On February 11, 2019, BART resumed direct SFO–Millbrae service at all times. On weekdays until 9 pm and on Sundays, a dedicated shuttle train operates between the two stations, with timed transfers to Antioch line trains at SFO. Weeknight and Saturday service continue to be part of the Antioch line."

$5.05 one-way vs. $2.25 for the SFO bus.

[asked mods to retitle this something more generic like "Transferring between Caltrain and SFO"]

RichardInSF

The only unfortunate thing about the Millbrae-SFO shuttle is that it only operates every 30 minutes. That means that there is actually better service, every 20 minutes, on nights and weekends.

docbert

This service is in addition to the existing trains, so there's technically 6 trains from Millbrae to the airport every hour during the day, and 3 every hour on nights/weekends. 4 of those 6 are the old Millbrae -> San Bruno -> SFO routing which takes 11 minutes, with the remaining 2 being the direct train which takes 4 minutes.


As for the SFO route bus, I've now caught this a few times and it works well. Time wise it's generally no slower than the via-San Bruno trains (although obviously slower than the direct), is half the price, and drops off/picks up at all terminals so there's no need to catch the airtrain if you're headed somewhere other than International/T3. I've used it both connecting from Caltrain from the south bay (the schedules are roughly synchronized), as well as when using airport parking at BART (which is technically not allowed as you have to catch BART to use their airport parking). That said, the schedule is far more limited than BART - especially on Sundays where the first bus isn't until after 10am.

MDtR-Chicago

I was trying to get from the peninsula back to the Mission on a Sunday. The problem with the Purple Line is that, while it is timed very well for the Antioch train (step from one side of the platform to the other), it is NOT necessarily timed well for the Caltrain dropoff. It was about a 15 min wait standing on the platform at Millbrae, with no signs indicating that a train would ever be departing at all. Plus most people were confused about the change of trains at SFO and quite a few people almost went back to Millbrae.

Not explained well, not signed well, not great timing, etc.

It seems that in the current schedule, the ONLY Sunday service from Millbrae is the shuttle to the airport.

docbert

AFAIK, Caltrain and BART have never had any level of planned synchronization.

Although this is what the schedule seems to show, I don't believe it's the case. The train that does Millbrae -> SFO is the same train that continues from SFO going north. It shows as a transfer, but it's not really. I caught BART from SFO->Millbrae on Sunday 3 weeks ago, and the train definitely came in from north and had passengers already on it - despite the schedule showing it as a separate train. The northbound train arrived a few minutes before mine, and had passengers already on it (that didn't exit) that I presume came from Millbrae.

MDtR-Chicago

So this is even worse - sometimes it does what the map says and sometimes it doesn't. I definitely had to change trains two weeks ago.

Eastbay1K

There has been a lot of weekend construction causing schedule irregularities.