Commuting in California.?

If you live in Benicia it is best to just drive to Vacaville. For Hayward, the El Cerrito Del Norte BART station would be the best BART station to go to. There is a bus that's pretty quick that runs between that station and Downtown Vallejo. Vallejo might also be a place to consider although make sure you pick the right part of town b/c there are definately bad parts. Or look at American Canyon just north of Vallejo; but Benicia is a nice, small quaint town too. Also make sure that the job in Hayward is near the BART station or has a quick bus connection to and from the station b/c the office could be nowhere near the BART station. If it's not near or has quick access to the BART station then driving probably would be best.

Why Benicia? But putting that point aside, yes you can make the trip from there. Benicia transit has a direct route to the Pleasant hill BART station where you can get on a train to Oakland and another to Hayward from there (for you going to Hayward) and another Benicia transit route going to Vallejo with an easy transfer to a Vallejo express bus #91 or 92 continuing on to Vacaville from there for your wife. Good Luck. The perfect location to live for such a joint commute might be El Cerrito where there is a single direct BART train to Hayward and a single direct Vallejo Transit bus to Vacaville. Benicia is somewhat industrial and a bit off the beaten path. Good Luck!

Oh wow...that is going to be a VERY difficult commute. Traffic is VERY bad between Benicia and Vacaville and from Benicia to Hayward. Re: public transportation - I put the url's for Bart and Amtrak below.

The commute from Benicia to Hayward will be a LITTLE easier than the commute up to Vacaville just because they are still in the Bay Area. 80 is not a pretty site during commute hours or during winter time and Vacaville is not considered the Bay Area anymore. Another place to look at with regards to commuting to Vacaville and Hayward would be the Stockton/Livermore area. Still a pretty bad commute from there too but that's another option.

Best of luck.

www.bart.gov

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/Page/Browse_Stations_Page&c=Page&cid=1081256321446&ssid=74

For bart, you would need to drive down to Concord, Walnut creek or pleasant hill. and take bart from there. For train, you would need to drive over the bridge to Martinez and take the capital corridor train from Martinez to Hayward. You can also try the ferry, but it would be very long and convaluted. You'd have to drive to vallejo, take the ferry over to SF Ferry Building and then transfer to an alameda ferry. But that doesn't get you to hayward.You'd have to find a bus after that.

Otherwise driving is your only option.

No, no public transportation (any good one) in Benicia. There are a lot of groups that meet and car pool, and do ride sharing, though.. Here is a link to find one: http://www.carpoolworld.com/
I bet you can also find one through Craig's List. The commute to Hayward from Benicia, would be terrible, especially coming back to Benicia during commute time. You are looking at at least 45 minutes to and an hour or more coming back, in good traffic.
The drive to vacaville (which is actually I- 80) would be ok, about 45 minutes. I think most people are coming from the fairfield/vacaville/sacramento area to work in the bay area, rather than the other way, so that traffic shouldn't be too bad.

You might be better off living closer to hayward, since your commute won't be fun.

I've lived in Benicia, my whole life, and can say it's a great place to live, and raise a family. It is getting expensive to live here though, now because of this.

Good Luck to you!

First off, commuting in the Bay Area can be quite painful.

To address your question, unfortunately, there is no BART or Amtrak in Benicia. The nearest Amtrak station is in Martinez and BART in Concord. I hate to tell you that Benicia is not exactly a public transit friendly city. The traffic from Benicia to Vacaville is not too bad on north bound I-680, so maybe your wife can drive. It's not worth the time and effort to use public transportation to get to Vacaville.

A quite different story for driving to Hayward though -- so maybe it is worth the while to take Amtrak from Martinez since it is a direct train to Hayward. I would not recommend BART because you either have to drive to Concord or Berkeley. From Concord to Hayward is a long ride because you have to transfer in Oakland. From Berkeley to Hayward is a direct train but then you have to drive all the way to Berkeley, and it's not a pretty drive in the morning.

Welcome to the Bay Area! =)

You may want to rethink the whole thing. That is one of the worst commutes in norcal.