But I'm curious, how is public transportation in SF? Is it possible to get by without a car or is that a silly pipe dream?
Edit: for context, I'm a Seattleite who has been transplanted to NYC and is now looking to make it back to the West Coast (ideally, Cali!)
The public transportation is pretty good for a city in the USA but pretty bad compared to Europe and really bad compared to Japan. People who like the public transportation in SF usually live near one of the Muni train lines. People who hate the public transportation are usually in a neighborhood where they are stuck taking the bus (which is most of the neighborhoods).
That said, having a car in SF is nice, too. The downside is parking. The upside is being able to just drive over to Safeway for groceries, or drive up to Marin, or throw a surfboard on the roof and go down to Pacifica or Santa Cruz.
You can get most of the way there with Zipcar, but I found that if you regularly want to get out of the city on weekends, Zipcar was not as cost effective as owning a beater automobile.
I just saw your edit. The public transit is not as good (comprehensive) as NYC but is a little better than Seattle.
It's entirely possible to live without a car - very, very much so, but be prepared to pay if that's the case (i.e. neighborhoods well served by transit are expensive, think Manhattan rents... up to $2K for a studio? You bet!).
And re: expensive neighborhoods for transit. I think your numbers are quite a bit off - sure, if you want to live near the main Caltrain station, you are looking at that much. But you can easily find a large 1 bedroom for $1600 within 5 minutes of the light rail or BART for a total transit time to downtown of 10-15 minutes.
Being near BART is going to set you back at least $1700 at the very low end for a studio, $2000 for a 1BR. More for both depending on quality of the place, naturally. You might hack 10% off either of those prices if you pick up a particularly sweet deal.
FWIW, I signed my current place last month, so that's when my knowledge of the current rental market ends. I talked to numerous people including an apartment hunter, all of whom expressed incredulity at how much prices are shifting, even on the order of a couple of months.
General San Franciscan rule: If your neighborhood has parking, it isn't hip.
I'm really not much better off here in NYC though because I live way out on a point in Queens. The nearest public transportation is a bus that's over two miles from where I'm living. The long and short of it is I commute two hours each way every single day.
It's a certain kind of hell I'm not long to suffer.
But I guess my biggest challenge at this point is not only do I not have a car I don't have a license; never bothered and now I regret it. I'm not alone in NYC in this regard. My coworker has lived in NYC all his life and never had a license. He's in his mid-thirties. So I'm trying to figure out if it's practical to attempt the move to SF. Of course there's many things to figure out besides the logistics... but certainly this thread is very helpful in regards to getting around the city.
As far as your history lesson on rail expansion. You have it completely backwards. The bay area had a very extensive rail system 60-70 years ago. One level of the bay bridge was just for trains. Google the Key System for more information. When cars increased in popularity, most of the train and tram system outside of San Francisco went bust, rail corridors were turned into expressways (a great example on the peninsula is Foothill Expressway that runs from Stanford University to Cupertino).
Also, many destinations in the surrounding area are suburban or semi-rural. You need the car when you get there, because where you actually want to go is not usually near the transit station.
For example, it was theoretically possible for me to take public transport from SF to TechShop in Menlo Park, but it involved 2 hours of trains and a very limited bus service or 45 minute walk through an industrial park. Or, I could just drive there in 40 minutes.