The route is single tracked south of here to Plaza Saltillo so southbound trains wait in a passing loop just north of here until the northbound trains have passed. This does make it a good spot if you want to ride it as a round trip since the southbound will always arrive two minutes after the north

Our destination today was Crestview station in north-central Austin. Conveniently located across the street from the busy The Crescent shopping centre on North Lamar. It’s pretty warm and humid today but the station has a good number of shaded seats to wait for the train

Here are some shots of the unit we rode today, this is a Stadler GTW train. It is only two cars and unlike other GTWs you cannot pass between the cars. The seats are very comfortable though and the there is a mix of seating types including a four person table which we sat at for this trip

Champy’s on MLK was always a solid spot when I lived there

What a shame, I guess I’ll just have to keep going back until I succeed

Speaking of BART, here’s some blurry BART photos because wow does that thing move fast

Here’s some Muni Metro photos from Castro and West Portal stations.

Sadly I forgot to get any pictures of the trolleybus on line 24 I rode a bunch

Until next time San Francisco!

Next time I visit the Bay Area I plan to check out Caltrain and the VTA light rail. Love that the Clipper Card covers everything!

I do wish the new BART fare gates were faster at reading my Clipper card. It felt like it was taking at least 10 seconds before it I got the “Travel OK” and the gates opened. My partner’s Clipper card on iPhone seemed to be a bit faster. Not sure if this was a problem with the old ones

Overall a pretty fast system (for all but one trip to the airport where it felt like we crawled the whole way south of Daly City), comfortable, and clean

Two things surprised me most about BART:
1. The tunnels are extremely loud!
2. The trains I rode were mostly standing room. Especially compared to WMATA rolling stock on a narrower gauge, there were very few seats on these trains. I guess they’re a lot busier during rush hour?

Speaking of BART, here’s some blurry BART photos because wow does that thing move fast

One afternoon I did a big pointless circle where I went from Castro to Balboa Park on the K, took BART to Powell, then the N back to Haight. The whole ride on the K was pretty cool. West Portal neighbourhood seems like a neat spot I’d like to explore more some day

I actually quite liked the LRVs, and the automated operations in the tunnels seemed to flow pretty well. The things I’ve heard about Muni Metro not being able to stick to a schedule proved to be quite true. Just about every time I checked almost all of the trains were running late or early

Here’s some Muni Metro photos from Castro and West Portal stations.

Sadly I forgot to get any pictures of the trolleybus on line 24 I rode a bunch

Highlights of the trip: strolling through the Panhalde to Golden Gate Park, walking from Haight to Castro for a burrito, really good ramen, and stunning views of the city, parks, and neighbourhoods everywhere I went.

The best part: being able to see all of it by local transit