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John Cletheroe's
USA and Canada Holiday Hints |
San Francisco International Airport is located south of the city of San Francisco, on the east side of the southern peninsula, adjacent to San Francisco Bay.
From US101, a short spur road runs east to the airport terminal. However, as described below this is not the road to take when returning a rental car.
The airport only has one terminal building, arranged in a large horseshoe shape. However, a new International Terminal building is currently (summer 2000) under construction - I don't know if this will connect directly with the existing terminal building or if it will be separate from it.
Until the new international terminal opens, international flights arrive at and depart from the international section of the old terminal building. This is in the centre of the horseshoe.
There are no car rental company desks in the airport terminal. When we landed at San Francisco in the summer of 1998, 1999 and 2000 there were no signs whatsoever in the terminal indicating how to get to the car rental depots. From the main level of the terminal, where you exit from Immigration and Customs, you need to take the stairs or escalator up one level. There is a lift from the main level but it is only for access downwards to the underground car park and it does not extend upwards from the main level to the upper level that you require. Instead, you must take the stairs or escalator, neither of which will accommodate a luggage trolley of course. Having reached the upper level, exit the terminal and partly cross the road to wait for a free car rental shuttle bus. Sadly the same bus stop is also used by large tour buses which often block the way for the car rental buses.
All the car rental company depots are now located outside the airport in the new Rental Car Centre. This is a large multi-story car park on the east side of US101 a few miles north of the airport. Free shuttle buses run between various stops around the airport terminal and the Rental Car Centre - not by a special road inside the airport area as you might expect, but incredibly via US101, making for a lengthy journey. Whereas the car rental shuttle buses at most airports are run by the individual rental car companies, here there is only one anonymous shuttle bus operator which makes for very crowded shuttle buses. Since the summer of 1999 the number of shuttle buses seems have been increased and different shuttle buses only stop at certain terminals - this has improved the situation considerably.
When picking up a rental car here, your first manoeuvre is to exit the multi-story car park and navigate to US101, neither of which are simple. There is a signpost indicating that you need to get into a left lane at one junction on the way to US101, but sadly there is no repeat sign at the junction itself. To join US101 North you then need to turn right but the freeway entrance isn't too clearly marked.
To reach the Rental Car Centre by road when returning a rental car, take the San Bruno Avenue East exit from US101. If you were travelling north on US101, then at the end of the offramp from the exit you need to turn right. In the summer of 1999 there were no signs to the Rental Car Centre at this junction but I'm pleased to be able to report that by the summer of 2000 this had been rectified. The route from US101 heading south appears from the map to be rather more convoluted. You then need to drive to the correct floor of the multi-story car park for your particular car rental company - this is very clearly signposted within the building.
There are only three passenger lifts between the floors of the Rental Car Centre's car park, inadequate for the number of people using them. The lifts are small and can only accommodate two or three luggage trolleys and their accompanying passengers at a time. In addition, the lift doors close very quickly but the lifts travel very slowly. There is quite a long walk (through a building site in summer 1999) between the lift entrance on the bottom floor of the Rental Car Centre to the shuttle bus pickup/dropoff point - did nobody think of installing a moving walkway here?
There is a plan to build a transit system called AirTrain between the Car Rental Centre and the airport terminal but this is not scheduled for completion until 2001. Judging by an "artist's impression" drawing and what we could see from US101, the station at the Rental Car Centre will be reached via stairs or an escalator, which will be extremely awkward for the large number of passengers with luggage. Even then it will apparently take nine minutes to travel between the Rental Car Centre and the terminal, plus a three minute wait for trains.
In our opinion, the new Car Rental Centre provides an extremely poor experience for passengers compared to the old open-air individual car rental facilities. I imagine that having to work in little more than a shack in a dingy multi-story car park isn't popular with the car rental company employees either, compared with their previous smart, large, air conditioned offices.
I can only hope that the car rental companies have sufficient courage to abandon the use of this terrible building as soon as possible and return to their former far superior open-air facilities.
Because of the unpredictability of traffic delays in the San Francisco area and the poor design of the Rental Car Centre, be sure to allow even more time than normal when returning a rental car at this airport.
If you are approaching San Francisco Airport by car from the east, then a good route is I-580, I-238, I-880 South, Ca 92 over the San Mateo Bridge and finally US101 North to the airport. The exit for I-238 from I-580 is signposted some miles ahead of the actual junction but unfortunately the sign neglects to mention that the exit is on the left, a rather vital piece of information since the road here has at least six lanes and usually has very high levels of fast moving traffic. It is not until you reach the sign just before the exit that it becomes obvious that you need to be in the left lanes for I-238. If you are taking this route then you also need to have $2 ready for the San Mateo Bridge toll.
If you have plenty of time then California State Highway 82, El Camino Real, provides a much more relaxing and interesting alternative to US101 for travellers from the south (San Jose, for example). Travelling north on Ca82, turn right onto San Bruno Avenue, continue on San Bruno Avenue over US101 and then turn right to the rental car centre.
After returning a rental car at the end of your holiday, if you are taking an international flight then be sure to ignore the rental car shuttle bus stop for your airline's section of the terminal, which is only for their domestic flights. Instead, you should alight from the car rental shuttle bus at the International Terminal, otherwise you will be in for a long walk to the correct part of the terminal.
Considerable construction work is currently being done around the airport and alongside US101 in its area. In the summer of 1998 the area was in a state of some chaos; in the summer of 1999 this chaos had got considerably worse. By the summer of 2000 things appeared to be a little better.
According to a report in USA Today on 20-Jun-03, the San Francisco International Airport BART station was due to open on 22-Jun-03, connecting the airport with the cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley.
Shops and restaurants in San Francisco International Airport are extremely expensive.
The International Terminal that was in use in 2000 had inadequate seating at each gate, and seating was shared between gates with no proper individual gate holding areas. Sometimes due to poor planning two flights boarded at the same time from adjacent gates which shared the same seating area, leading to much confusion. There was no proper funnelling of passengers into the jetway, often leading to disorganised chaos.
The following news item appeared in the UK Sunday Times travel supplement on 3-Sep-00: San Francisco has delayed the opening of its new $1.25 billion [probably 109] terminal for up to three months. The building, which will be the world's largest international terminal, was scheduled to open on 26-Sep-00, but has been dogged by glitches with luggage retrieval, gate assignments and fire-alarm certification.
Update: According to the airport's official web site, as at Nov-02 the new international terminal is now operative but the Rental Car Centre transit system was still under construction.
Security is as chaotic as the rest of this airport's operations. There are no proper queue lines and large numbers of people are allowed to form a disorganised crowd. On one occasion I saw a person in the queue for a baggage security X-ray machine pass a bag across to another member of their party who had already passed through, without this being challenged, because there was no barrier between the two of them.
In my experience receipts for suitcases are never checked when leaving the baggage return area, allowing any passenger to easily take anyone else's property by accident or on purpose.
First night accommodation for San Francisco
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Most recently modified 27-Jun-03