Oakland to San Jose, morning commute?

[serene]

Hi, all,

I'm heading to bed now, but I will check this when I wake up. I'm driving from North Oakland to San Jose tomorrow morning. I have to be there at 8:30am. Google maps says 41.5 miles and 45 minutes. What do you think -- should I leave at 7am (giving me an hour and a half to get there)? Earlier? Later?

Comments

[cassidyrose.livejournal.com]

Yes, at least 1.5 hours. Are you going to North, Central or South San Jose? This makes a big difference as there are many traffic choke points on 880 throughout San Jose and just going from, one end of San Jose to the other on 880 can take a while. You may get lucky, but last year going from south Fremont to North San Jose (Brokaw exit) at that time often took 30-45 minutes depending on how bad traffic was (that was my commute)--for reference it was only a 13 mile drive. If you have to go further south than Brokaw and have to get past the 101 interchange you will have further delays. Currently there is major construction on 880 around Mission Blvd in Fremont and it is creating major back-ups at all times of day. I'd definitely check this map http://traffic.511.org/sfgate/ in the morning, but it doesn't show further south than Milpitas and there can be some pretty bad delays south of that. In general, the south Fremont/Milpitas part of 880 is nasty during commute time.

[ptor.livejournal.com]

ah. jessica covered it.

[ptor.livejournal.com]

In fact, it's often bad enough in our section of 880, that I take a crazy path of Fremont back streets, frontage roads, and shortcuts to get to work in Milpitas....

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

North Oakland to SJ during the morning commute? May God have mercy on your soul.

For a while, Michele and I had a reverse commute -- south SJ to Hayward, 42 miles of sheer raging hell. When 880 is the good part of the commute, you have problems. Even with the carpool lane, it consistently took us over an hour.

I would pack a book and some breakfast and leave at 6:30.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

*nod* This is too late to be useful, but it takes me 45 minutes to get to Joe's house (I live near 238/580, he lives near 880/17/280 in southish San Jose) with no traffic at all. And traffic that direction can crawl, with some areas that barely move.

[maestrodog.livejournal.com]

God I hope you heeded the advice and left extra-early. I really HATE driving that freeway during the week...it's bad enough taking 20-30 minutes to drive the six miles from Milpitas to Santa Clara when we go to a dinner event...and I (somewhat reluctantly) don't go to the Friday night events up in your area for exactly that reason. Last time I tried driving from Mountain View to Berkeley during rush hour, it took me 2 hours and 20 minutes...and I didn't see a single accident anywhere on the way. Can you tell this is a sore point with me? ;)