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Commuting to Stanford?


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My wife is going to be working in Sacramento,CA and I'm considering a studying at Stanford. Does anybody have a good suggestion for where to live which will allow me to take the train? Stanford has a shuttles from Fremont, Union City and Newark. Any suggestions?

Travel Tips
BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) goes to Fremont. Sacramento is about 1.5 hours drive. Tracy might be a good go between...in the San Joaquin Valley.

Others
Sacramento and Stanford are so far from one another. I think you will both end up hating the commute if you try to live in the middle. Here is what I can say:

1. You can live in the Stockton area which will be about a 45 to 60 minute commute to Sac. From there you can take the ACE train (www.acerail.com) and then transfer in Fremont to a Stanford shuttle.

2. Live in the Fairfield area and you will be about 1.5 hours from both Sac and Stanford. You can take a bus from Fairfield to San Francisco and then catch a Cal Train (www.caltrains.com) to Stanford/Palo Alto.

There is no commute train or commute bus from Sacramento to Stanford. I am not sure what you want to major in at Stanford, but maybe you could consider some other schools. In Stockton there is the University of the Pacific. In Sacramento there is McGeorge School of Law and CSU Sacramento. In Davis there is UC Davis. All of those schools would be much easier for you to commute to.

Best of luck to you.
Drive. You might need a car. There is a relatively long walk in the campus before you reach the school buildings. If you come in and out of campus after dark walking alone might not be safe as the path out is kind of dark and deserted.

Stanford Shuttle: If the Stanford Shuttle works in with your school schedule, take the car to the most convenient (parking availibility and drive time considered) East Bay city. Re. driving in the valley, there is tule fog during certain seasons of the year so you'd need to drive cautiously.

Amtrack runs from Stockton to the East Bay but I'm not sure that it runs as far as Fremont.

The ACE is probably the best rail to catch to Fremont (probably/hopefully Stanford Shuttle connects up with it.) That system caters to the large number of commuters who have moved out of the more expensive bay area into the valley where housing is cheaper.
My son lived in San Mateo, tried Caltrain which only runs between SF and San Jose but eventually I had to get him a car. However, driving to school one morning, a car of local thugs tried to force him off the road on El Camino in Palo Alto. He had no doubt it was a carjack attempt. It only happened once though. Frye72 is right. You might end up hating the commute. Most mass trransportation schedules aren't too flexible but it's the best way to get around here where roads are crowded or weather bad. You can study when someone else is driving, though.
Unless you are living apart, I suggest trying UC Davis instead. Stanford is far. So if you live apart try to stay in Palo Alto and just walk to school.

Otherwise you need to drive to Richmond just to catch a train.
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