Take Market St south to San Pablo Ave, then San Pablo Ave until it ends. (Traffic is forced to take a left at the last light before the road ends - take this left.)
Continue across Telegraph, Broadway, etc, then take a right at Madison. You'll probably get stopped by a red light at the first traffic signal on Madison, but you should hit a run of synchronized green lights if you're speedy enough.
Keep going straight on Madison as you you cross under 880, letting most of the traffic turn left for freeway access.
At the next stop sign, turn left, then right at the next stop sign (Oak) which will join the Embarcadero.
Follow the Embarcadero to the Park Street bridge, where there are lots of choices for getting to Santa Clara and High Street.
San Pablo and Market may seem daunting to you, but both are wide streets where cars seem to find adequate space to get around a bicyclist without friction. I usually find very little traffic on Market. On San Pablo, I have two rules: first, never enter an intersection in the blind spot of an adjacent car (be even or ahead of their front wheel); and second, when the light is red, move to the front of the queue so you're first across the intersection on green (after checking for red light runners) so as to be most visible and claim your space.
posted: Tue, 09 Aug 2005