Getting Around Santa Cruz Without a Car

The park's location on Portola Drive puts most of the East Side within walking distance. The sand at the Corcoran Lagoon end of the beach is about 9 minutes down the street. The surf at The Hook and The Point is a 12-minute walk. The cluster of coffee, food, and board rental over on 41st Avenue is a 10-to-15-minute walk depending on which block you're aiming for, and none of it needs the car.

The walk itself is flat the whole way, which matters if you're carrying a board, a cooler, or a tired kid. Cross Portola at the stop signs, and use your flashers.

If you brought bikes, the East Cliff path is more for watching the surfers and riding along the bluffs than for getting around the East Side quickly. For getting from place to place on the East Side, the streets are often faster. But the path is worth riding for its own sake. A short ride from the park drops you onto the East Cliff Drive path, a flat paved route along the top of the bluffs with the ocean on one side the entire way.

The standout stretch runs between 32nd and 41st Avenue, where the county made the road one-way and handed the reclaimed space to a separated bike path and a walking path up to 16 feet wide. There is a public restroom at Pleasure Point Park along the way. It's beginner-friendly and fine for kids. You're not fighting car doors or a bike lane painted six inches from traffic. From there you can keep going past The Hook and Moran Lake toward Opal Cliffs.

One warning. Riding all the way to the Boardwalk is doable for a confident cyclist, but it is not the calm, protected ride the first stretch is. Once you pass the harbor the protected path runs out and you're mixing with traffic through town and over the river. Skip it unless you're comfortable in traffic, and take the bus to the Boardwalk instead.

You've probably heard about the Coastal Rail Trail, the path being built along the old rail line that will eventually run the length of the county. It comes up in every Santa Cruz cycling conversation, so here is the reality for 2026.

The finished, ridable section is on the west side of town. It now runs roughly two miles, from Natural Bridges down to Beach Street near the Wharf, after the Wharf-side segment opened in May 2025. It's a good ride if you're already over there. But the segments that would connect the East Side and Pleasure Point to downtown, the ones running east from 17th Avenue through Live Oak, are not built. They are funded and designed, with a $67.6 million state grant in hand, but the county has construction penciled in for 2027 through 2030, not this year.

So don't plan on the rail trail to get you downtown from here. For now it's the East Cliff path plus surface streets, or the bus. We'll update this when the East Side segments actually break ground.

This is where the rebuilt network trips people up, so read this part carefully. There is no plain "route 3" anymore. METRO split it into route 3A and route 3B, and both are labeled "Capitola Mall / Live Oak" in the app and at the stop. Both run the East Side line along Portola Drive past the park, between downtown and Capitola Mall, with stops down the street near 18th, 30th, 35th, and 37th and Portola.

What you need to know is the direction. One way runs inland toward downtown and ends at the River Front Transit Center at Front and Soquel, at the edge of the city core. The other runs the other way to Capitola Mall. So if you're heading toward downtown you want the inbound branch, and if you're heading to Capitola you want the outbound one. Check the headsign or the Transit app, which shows you which bus is going your way in real time. Daytime service runs roughly every 30 minutes, so it's worth timing.

For getting across town faster there is route 1, which METRO nicknamed the Wave. It runs about every 15 minutes from roughly 6 AM to 9 PM along the Soquel Avenue corridor, connecting Live Oak and Capitola through downtown and on toward UCSC. The neighborhood branch, 3A or 3B, is your local connector to reach it or to get to and from downtown directly.

• Route 3A / 3B — the East Side line along Portola Drive, between downtown (River Front Transit Center, Front and Soquel) and Capitola Mall. Roughly every 30 minutes. Check the headsign or app for the one heading your way.
• Route 1, the Wave — about every 15 minutes 6 AM to 9 PM along Soquel Avenue between Live Oak, Capitola, downtown, and UCSC. Your fast way across town.
• The Boardwalk — no METRO route drops you right at the Boardwalk. Ride any inbound route downtown to the River Front hub, then walk down Pacific Avenue. More on that below.
• Fares and live times — pay onboard or in the Transit app, which also shows real-time arrivals. Check scmetro.org for current fares and the mid-June 2026 summer schedule change before you rely on a specific departure.

This is the most-asked question. Take the inbound East Side branch (3A or 3B, whichever is headed downtown) to the River Front Transit Center, then walk. The Boardwalk is about a 10-to-15-minute walk down Pacific Avenue from the downtown transit area, and only a few minutes from the Pacific Avenue and Front Street end near the Wharf. One bus and a short walk beats waiting on a second connection.

There is one useful option for late evenings. Route 1, the Wave, runs select late-night trips that start right at the Boardwalk at Cliff and Beach, the last ones leaving around 8:45, 9:45, and 10:45 in the evening before heading back through downtown. That gives you a single bus straight back from the Boardwalk late in the evening if your timing lines up. Confirm those times on scmetro.org before you count on them, since late-night trips are exactly the kind of thing a schedule change moves.

Budget enough time. With the ride downtown plus the walk down Pacific, budget around 30 to 45 minutes from the park to the Boardwalk, more if you just miss a bus. Driving takes 15 minutes, plus however long it takes to find Boardwalk parking in summer. For downtown itself, the food, the shops, the movie theater, the inbound branch drops you right at the River Front hub at the edge of it, no transfer needed. Leaving the car parked makes the most sense for downtown, where parking is metered, time-limited, and usually full.

If you towed a car or a Jeep behind the rig, the easy answer is you leave it at your site. Each site is sized for one vehicle alongside your RV, so your tow car parks at home with you and you're not hunting for street parking with it. That's what a lot of guests with a tow car do. The car sits idle most of the trip, because the beach and the surf are a walk away, and it comes out for the drives that actually need it.

A few practical notes, and a couple of these are worth a quick call to the office before you book so we can match you to the right site. Sites here are compact by design and fit RVs up to around 43 feet, so a big rig plus an oversized truck is worth confirming in advance. If you'd rather not pay for an extra vehicle space on-site, you can park an overflow or extra vehicle on the neighborhood street. It's a residential stretch with its own parking rules, so give us a call and we'll confirm what works. If your group is rolling in two RVs or an RV plus a big trailer, talk to us first.

• Tow car — parks at your site, one vehicle per site. No downtown meter, no daily parking hunt.
• Big truck plus big rig — call ahead so we match you to a site that fits both. Sites are compact and top out around 43 feet.
• Overflow vehicles — to skip paying for an extra on-site space, you can street-park an extra vehicle in the neighborhood. Call us to confirm.

Getting around without a car works well for destinations inside the East Side and downtown, but the bus network is not suited for day trips out of town, and service thins at night. Keep the keys handy for destinations that are a genuine drive.

The redwoods are about 20 minutes up into the hills, Monterey and the aquarium are about 45 minutes around the bay, and Capitola is about 5 minutes by car, though that one is also a pretty bike ride or a short bus. For those, drive. For everything inside the East Side and downtown, walk, ride, or catch the bus. Driving directions to the park are on our getting here page.