Driving advice?

[brooksmoses]

suzimoses and I are driving up to Santa Rosa at 8pm this evening for a concert, thanks to some tickets that were a Christmas gift from my brother.

Google and Mapquest suggest that I should take 101 up to 380, go across to 280, up 19th and across the Golden Gate Bridge to get to 101 north.

Yahoo, on the other hand, suggests that I should take 101 up to 80, go across the Bay Bridge and then across the Point Richmond / San Rafael bridge to 101 north.

Given that we'll be doing all of this around 6pm on a Friday afternoon, I suspect that both of these bits of advice are probably wrong, and that the thing to do is to start out on 280 and avoid 101 as long as possible. What I'm not sure about are the bridges; either way seems likely to be a mess. (And I think that the same trip a decade ago is when my brother sideswiped someone driving my car through the Golden Gate bridge tollbooths....)

Suggestions/recommendations on the best way to go?

Also, advice on how much extra time to allow for traffic? All of the sites are saying about an hour and 45 minutes of driving time.

Thanks!

Comments

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I would take 237 to 880 to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.

(maximize carpool lanes)

I know that when brian1789 had a sweetie up in Sonoma Co., he'd take that route, too.

I've usually hit a lot of traffic between Petaluma and Santa Rosa.

[brooksmoses]

Cool; thanks! I hadn't thought about taking 237, since it's a few miles south of us, but I do remember it being pretty sane in that direction even at rush hour. (The other direction, though, whee!)

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

according to my nav system, its about 6 miles longer to take 237, but I got in the habit of it because of the carpool lanes plus no tolls headed west. (Even if the road speeds are the same, I'd rather have $4 than six minutes)

[brooksmoses]

Now that I think about it, though, aren't the carpool lanes on the East side of the bay 3-person, rather than just 2-person? (Sadly, we have no carpool-lane-enabled Prius.)

[hopeforyou.livejournal.com]

I second this. I think 101 N will be incredibly dense, and while 880 can be, if you hit it earlier and use carpool lanes, it should be much easier.

I also find 80 to the Richmond-SR Bridge far less congested to not congested than I would find 101 all the way up to Napa. It's taken me many hours to get anywhere on 101 N past the GG Bridge on the weekends... Even the weekend DAYS.

[brooksmoses]

Thanks for the advice! That's probably what I'll end up doing.

[mschlock.livejournal.com]

Hm. It regularly used to take my friend an hour to get from Alviso to Union City on 880, but then, she couldn't use carpool lanes. Of course, 101 is frequently evil anyhow. Can't tell ya.

237 heading towards the East Bay almost always looks like way more ass than the other direction when I leave work at night, FWIW.

Oh, and allow an extra hour for rain-induced accidents...