Bay Area party goers get free rides home

Bay City News Service

December 31, 2006

Start the year with a free bus ride and avoid holiday traffic and other road hazards. That's the deal being offered by San Francisco Municipal Railway and AC Transit starting New Year's Eve and lasting until the early morning hours of Jan. 1. There are no free rides on Bay Area Rapid Transit trains, but there's a discount pass passengers can use to get around.

Muni will start its free service at 8 p.m. on New Year's Eve and it will continue until 6 a.m. Jan 1. According to spokeswoman Maggie Lynch, there will be a special metro service from 7 p.m. to around 4 a.m. between the Caltrain depot at 4th and King Streets connecting to the West Portal Station. There will also be extra service on several lines of the late-running so called Muni Owl lines.

AC Transit is offering free rides on its so-called All Nighter bus service. The buses will run every 30 minutes, starting at midnight until 5 a.m. Jan 1. with roundtrip service from downtown San Francisco to virtually all parts of the East Bay, according to spokesman Clarence Johnson. The buses mainly travel along BART corridors, connecting with other bus routes or other transit agencies.

BART riders can get unlimited rides from 6 p.m. New Year's Eve until around 3 a.m. Jan 1., according to spokesman Linton Johnson. The so-called Flash Pass cost $6 and passengers should show them to a BART station agent and pass through the station gate.

The special passes won't fit into the regular BART fare gates, Johnson said.

The passes can be bought at Safeway stores across the Bay Area and in many BART stations.

According to a news release by BART, during the early morning hours of Jan. 1, train service will end three hours later than what the printed Sunday timetable states. For example, if the Sunday timetable says the last train leaves the train station at 12:30 a.m., then the last train will actually leave at 3:30 a.m.

For more information on Muni service, call (415) 673-6864 or visit the Web site at http://www.sfmuni.com/nye. For more information about the All Nighter service, call 511 and say "All Nighter" or go to the Web site at http://www.511.org. For more information on BART service, got to http://www.bart.gov/.

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