Thursday, October 24, 2013

you can't get there from here

I've been thinking about going up to the City on Saturday morning for the first iteration of Lisa Bielawa's Crissy Broadcast, a mass outdoor musical event on Crissy Field, the former airstrip that most of the iconic photos of people standing with the Golden Gate Bridge behind them are taken from. The rareness of such a musical event intrigues me. It sounds like it'll be something like Stockhausen without the toxic politics. It would be something to be able to say, I was there.

The problem is, getting there. I'm dubious about driving. I don't know much about parking in the area, I'm doubtful about the feasibility of what I do know, and I might not be the only person trying it. Not to mention that I have no idea how the hundreds of performers are getting there, or how much parking they might take up.

It's when I checked the project's own "directions and parking" web page that I got nervous, and wonder if anyone organizing this has any idea what they're doing. I'd be taking CalTrain, and they recommend, as they do from several other directions, transferring to the PresidiGo shuttle.

A little checking established a few problems with this idea:
1) The PresidiGo shuttle doesn't run on weekends;
2) Even if it did, it requires a pass for morning runs;
3) You can't transfer to it directly from CalTrain, as it doesn't go anywhere near the station.

Also, for further transit planning information, you need to go, not to www.511.com as they instruct, but www.511.org.

So if I take the first CalTrain run of the day, which leaves here at 7:14 AM, that will get me up in time to catch a 37-minute bus ride through some of the City's more colorful and congested neighborhoods which will dump me out in the Marina, at what it says here is a 20-minute walk away, with 34 minutes to walk there before the starting time. So assuming that's not packed, and I just have to hope it isn't, it's doable, and the sole remaining question is, will I get up early enough?

Because if not, I'm going two miles from home to see the Met broadcast of The Nose instead.

(Why not go to one of the other performances of Crissy Broadcast? Time conflicts, and the probability that, being at more reasonable hours, they'll be more crowded.)

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