Living in Oakland (Work in progress)

So it’s been about a few months now that I’ve been living in Oakland and I thought I started to get the hang of it and feel pretty relaxed until recently something happened to me that affected my whole mindset about living and chilling around here.

Let’s rewind a little bit

I moved up here exactly 5 months ago tomorrow. When I first moved up here I heard about some of the problems with crime that can come up while living around here. Not too long ago I remember my uncle (who’s sorta close minded/older) complained that Oakland was the murder capital of the United States. I didn’t think much of it back then.

Since my brother has been living up here for a little while and I’ve come up and visited him on a couple of occasions, I thought that Oakland wasn’t all that bad. I mean each time I came and visisted I met nice people and obviously the diversity was there, but not in a threatening way.

My struggles started with the commute

When I first moved up here, I was consistently frustrated with dealing with my morning commute. I live in the Laurel Heights district of Oakland and it’s not exactly clear path to get to my job at Uber in San Francisco.

Here are my commute options:

1. I can bike to the BART stop (Fruitvale) and then BART into SF stopping at Montgommery

 Bike to bart ~20min
 BART to SF ~30 min
 Walk to desk ~5 min

Advantage: I get a nice workout on the bike ride in the morning. Disadvantage: I almost get run over by cars every morning…and it can be cold.

2. I can take the local bus to the BART, the BART into SF.

 Walk to bus ~10min
 Bus to BART ~15-20 min
 BART to SF ~30 min
 Walk to desk ~5 min

Advantage: hard to say…this one is usually long and ridden with public transit folks.

Disadvantage: Taking public transit in Oakland you always find interesting people(and not interesting in the way that you want to hang out with them). Also this option I think is more expensive.

3. I can take a bus that comes in front of my neighborhood that drops me off a short walk away from work

 Walk to bus ~10min
 Bus to SF ~45 min
 Walk to desk ~5 min

Advantage: This is by far the best and most relaxing option. It gives me the ability to have my own comfortable seat, hotspot for wifi connectivity (which allows me to work as soon as I get on the bus) or even just open up a book and read(probably my favorite bus passtime)

Disadvantage: Taking public transit in Oakland you always find interesting people(not interesting in the way that you want to hang out with them). Also this option is more expensive.

Concluding thoughts I’m not used to having an hour long commute every morning and evening to work, nor having to deal with public transit each way so it’s a little bit of an adjustement. It might sound like I’m sorta sheltered and haven’t been exposed but maybe living in Orange County gives people that experience. I’d also like to finish with saying that I do enjoy the idea of not having to drive my own car and sit in traffic, the bus or even the BART allow me to not have to deal with traffic and driving situations.