Hi
I'm trying to find out if its feasible to travel to Cloverdale from SF via public transport (as I don't drive.)
The situation is I'm visiting SF for a week next month (travelling from England) and was interested in doing a skydive with a company based in Cloverdale (www.skydivesf.com)
I've emailed them to ask about getting there and have had the email ignored. I've had a look at the transit.511.org site which isn't too helpful.

Does anyone know how long it would take, or point me to a site with schedules/prices?

Many thanks

Andy

That may be a tough one - I don't think Golden Gate Transit goes there. Maybe an email to the Chamber of Commerce will assist - here's a link to the city page.

http://www.cloverdale.net/contact.asp

It looks like you could take GGT to the Santa Rosa Transit Mall, then take Sonoma Transit Route # 60 to Cloverdale.

The Sonoma Transit schedule shows limited service on weekends, a little better on weekdays.

http://www.sctransit.com/pdf/schedul.../090803/60.pdf


The general Sonoma Transit site:

http://www.sctransit.com


Several Golden Gate Transit routes go from Downtown SF to Santa Rosa. This webpage will allow you to see several numbered routes that make the (lengthy - 2.5+ hours) trip from SF to Santa Rosa:

http://www.goldengate.org/b/nov2Transit.htm


General site for Golden Gate Transit:

http://www.goldengate.org


Best wishes for your journey and skydiving adventure!

Oops, I forgot to say:

Welcome to FlyerTalk, AndyK!

Many thanks for the speedy reply, much appreciated.
I'm looking into it, hopefully it will be viable.
Thanks again for the info

Believe it or not, there is an Amtrak stop in Cloverdale. You can take an Amtrak bus from either the Ferry Building or from Moscone Center (both near BART) to Emeryville. Looks like it takes about an hour and a half and costs $38 round trip. Not sure it goes every day, though, so check. Also, the station is not right in town, rather out by the 101 bypass. I don't know if there is a cab service in Cloverdale or not.

Has anyone else asked why you would want to do business of any kind (let alone skydiving!) with someone who won't answer your enquiries?

I'm happy to see that you don't drive, Andy. Driving is risky. ;-)

Hi soma1k - can you please verify which Amtrak train serves Cloverdale?

I know that the Coast Starlight does not (it goes up the Sacramento Valley as it makes its way from the SF Bay Area into Oregon).

From checking the Amtrak website, it says that to get to Cloverdale, one would need to take the following (I used a random weekday date):

From San Francisco Ferry Bldg on 03/05/04 to Emeryville on 03/05/04
From Emeryville on 03/05/04 to Martinez on 03/05/04
From Martinez on 03/05/04 to Cloverdale on 03/05/04


6622 BUS
San Francisco Ferry Bldg Emeryville 03/05/04
7:10am 03/05/04
7:45am Unreserved Thruway

522 TRAIN
Emeryville Martinez 03/05/04
7:55am 03/05/04
8:35am Unreserved Coach

6311 BUS
Martinez Cloverdale 03/05/04
10:15am 03/05/04
12:15pm

The Amtrak site lists a fare of $16.15, but that elapsed time of 5 hours and 5 minutes gives one pause.

I hope I'm wrong

Is it possible that another agency runs rail service from Martinez up to Cloverdale?

You might want to ask these guys for a door-to-door quote:

http://www.marincountyairportexpress.com/

If you share the van with some other Marin/Sonoma passengers, it might be a reasonable fare.

I spotted $90 from SFO to Healdsburg (shared ride). Cloverdale is about 19 miles north of Healdsburg. My guess would be around $110.

One more thought -- if this outfit isn't responsible enough to respond to your request for directions, do you really want to be jumping out of airplanes with them?

[This message has been edited by dhuey (edited Jan 30, 2004).]

Guess Greyhound is the fastest public transit alternative, they appear to do this trip twice a day, with 2hours, 50 minutes travel time. Leaves from the Transbay terminal. And -- you meet the very best people!

Richard wins the prize. BART from SFO to Montgomery station. Walk two blocks to Transbay terminal (there's an entrance at 2nd & Mission). Go Greyhound and leave the driving to them.

Then you go skydiving. Yikes!

Note that the Grey-dog service is only twice daily, and the first won't get you to Cloverdale until mid-afternoon:

Departs Arrives Duration Carrier/Schedule

12:45p 03:30p 2h, 45m 0 GLI 1482

11:30p 02:20a 2h, 50m 0 GLI 1490

GLI: GREYHOUND LINES, INC.

Thanks for all the info..
I still haven't got a reply back from the company in question, which aside from being terrible customer service is just insulting.

So I'm giving the skydiving a miss, hopefully going to do it instead when I visit Vegas in April.

Cycling up to Mt.Tamalpais via Sausaltio/Muir Woods instead.

Can't wait to escape the English winter..