Emeryville

Emeryville is a small city on the San Francisco Bay that acts as a gateway to the East Bay from San Francisco. It exists at the edges of Berkeley and Oakland, and at the intersection of three major freeways: I-80, I-580, and I-880.

The 1990s and 2000s were a period of aggressive re-development for Emeryville, with industrial factories and warehouses replaced by modern retail and residential uses. Emeryville (population 13,000 in 2020) is now the go-to spot in the Berkeley/Oakland area for shopping at big-box chains like IKEA or Best Buy.

The city is also known for tech companies, such as Pixar studios. The city is featured in some small way in almost every Pixar film, such as on a map with actual street names in the film The Incredibles or a "Greetings from Emeryville" postcard at the dentist's office in Finding Nemo.

By plane
Oakland International Airport is the obvious choice, but San Francisco International Airport  will also do. From the airports, see rail section on BART.

By train

 * BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is the regional rail service which will connect you to San Francisco, Oakland, and other cities in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, there is no BART station in Emeryville; rather, simply get off BART at station in Oakland and take the free Emery Go-Round shuttles, which leave from right outside the station. If you get off at MacArthur at night, it is wise to be aware of your surroundings (as it is in many urban areas at night).
 * Routes stopping at this station:
 * California Zephyr operates daily between Emeryville and Chicago via Sacramento, Reno, Denver, and Salt Lake City.
 * Coast Starlight operates daily between Seattle and Los Angeles. Stops include Tacoma, Lacey, Centralia, Kelso, Vancouver, WA, Portland],] [[Salem (Oregon)|Salem, Albany, Eugene, Klamath Falls, Dunsmuir, Redding, Chico, Sacramento, Davis, Martinez, Oakland, San Jose, Salinas, Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Oxnard, Simi Valley, Van Nuys, and Burbank.
 * The Capitol Corridor operates 11-12 round trips daily between Sacramento and Oakland with some trains running south to San Jose.
 * San Joaquins operates 4 round trips daily between Bakersfield, Stockton and Oakland, with a stop in Emeryville.

By bus
In addition to the Emery Go-Round mentioned above, AC Transit buses serve Emeryville from Oakland, Berkeley, and other parts of the East Bay, and the F bus even comes across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco's Salesforce Transit Center.

By car
From San Francisco, take I-80 East and exit on Powell St. From points East, take I-80 West and exit on Powell St.

The complex freeway intersections just to the south of Emeryville are referred to as the Maze for good reason. Here are some tips to help your confusion:
 * Be aware that when traveling through Berkeley and Emeryville, I-80 west travels on the same road as I-580 east and vice versa.
 * When traveling from I-880 north onto I-80 east, you cannot exit at Powell. Instead merge right furiously and exit at Ashby/Shellmound. Take the Shellmound fork and right at Shellmound. Go straight and you'll see the Public Market and the rest of Emeryville shortly.

By bike or foot
Emeryville is on the San Francisco Bay Trail, a mixed-use bicycle/pedestrian path that follows the edge of the bay. It's also easy to walk here from nearby parts of Oakland and Berkeley; one city blends into the next so much that most locals don't know where the official border is.

Get around
For a city that has built its success on freeways and malls, Emeryville is surprisingly pedestrian-friendly. Sidewalks are usually available and the Bay Street Mall is quite pleasant to walk through. Distances are not that large: at a brisk pace you can walk from one end of town to the other in under an hour.

Nonetheless, it's a city that's primarily oriented towards cars. If you're driving, expect traffic delays if you want to go anywhere near Ikea or the Bay St. Mall.

Frequent and useful bus service is provided by the free Emery Go-Round and the local provider AC Transit. Transit trip planning is available online.

The Emery Go-Round is a free bus service that connects businesses and shopping areas in Emeryville with the MacArthur BART station. There are two lines: the Hollis line, which goes from the BART station up Hollis Street and up into the corner of nearby Berkeley; and the Shellmound/Powell line, which serves the city's major malls, the Public Market, and the marina. Both lines go close to the Amtrak station. They run Monday–Friday every 15 minutes from 6AM to about 9PM, and the Shellmound/Powell line also has reduced service on weekends (every 20 minutes 8AM–9PM on Saturdays and every 20 minutes 9AM–6PM on Sundays).

AC Transit buses are not free, so for getting around Emeryville they may not be your first choice, but they are useful for getting to Oakland and Berkeley.

See


Emeryville is an interesting mix of old warehouses, manufacturing plants, and houses and new development in the form of shopping malls and live-work lofts.



Public art
Walking or riding around Emeryville, you'll notice lots of odd stick-figure drawings on yellow metal boxes around town. The boxes are part of the traffic light system, but the stick figures are a project by local artist Seyed Alavi. According to the artist, the stick figures are inspired by the pedestrian walking signal, and each artwork is supposed to be read as a sign. On one street corner the figure is juggling heads; in another it's being zipped up (or unzipped?); on a third there are two figures on some sort of surreal elevator. There are two dozen of these whimsical and thought-provoking artworks scattered around town, collectively known as the "Signs of the Times", painted by Alavi together with local high school students.

In general Emeryville has quite a bit of public art, partly thanks to a local government program to support it and partly because artists moved into empty warehouses amid the city's deindustrialization. A partial map of artworks (not including the electricity boxes) is available online.

Buy
Large chain stores are found in abundance in Emeryville. It seems the big-box chains that couldn't make it in Oakland or Berkeley, due to expensive real estate or city governments' preferences to support local businesses, ended up with branches here instead. In addition to the shopping centers below, there are a lot of home furnishing stores, most notably an at 4400 Shellmound St.



Sleep
Emeryville actually features many of the most modern hotels in the Berkeley/Emeryville/Oakland region. Thus, you may choose to stay in Emeryville while actually spending your days in the other (more interesting) cities.



Stay safe
The large stores, the Public Market, and the Amtrak station are all safe areas. Broadly, Emeryville is about as safe as the areas of Oakland just to the east. Treat it with the same safety attitudes you would treat a large city like San Francisco.

Media
The E'ville Eye is Emeryville's local news website, and The East Bay Times also has an Emeryville section.

Go next

 * Berkeley - This neighboring city is famous for its quirkiness and liberal activism, and offers numerous interesting shops, restaurants, and nightlife spots for travelers.
 * Oakland – Emeryville's neighbor to the east, with a plethora of dining and shopping options that tend to offer more local personality than Emeryville's major chains.
 * San Francisco – the cultural and historic center of the Bay Area is right across the bridge and served by a direct bus from Emeryville.

Once you've explored these, the rest of the East Bay awaits.