Here’s how to park at A’s games for free.
This article is a part of the “For Your Information” series.
Regular season parking is $30 with the main gates opening 2.5 hours before the game but if you’d like to find free parking to avoid that fee, read on.
Free parking Tuesdays ($0)– Most Tuesday Home games at Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum are free. For a list of remaining games this season that offers free parking, click here.
Parking at the Coliseum BART ($8)– Parking here is NOT free anymore. Parking attendants before games at this BART parking station will ask for you to pay between $8-$10 to park here before any A’s game. For a list of the most recent parking rules for this station and to find BART police information, click here.
Parking at the Lake Merrit/ Fruitvale station or any other station ($3+$5 round-trip ticket)- You can easily park at any station in the BART system and take the next train to the Coliseum station. Parking at other stations is around $3 for a day pass and a round trip ticket per person from one station, say Fruitvale to Coliseum and back or San Leandro to Coliseum and back is $5 per person.
If you do the math, if you’ve got 5 people, it’ll cost you $3 to park your car and $25 worth of tickets if you decide to park at Fruitvale or San Leandro. At that point, it’s probably cheaper and worth your time to park at the Coliseum.
But if you’re by yourself or with your significant other, consider maybe having lunch, parking at another Bart station, and taking the train to the Coliseum.
Parking in the surrounding neighborhood ($0)- Technically, yes, you can park in the surrounding neighborhoods in and around the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum because those are public roads, just be aware of the signs in that area. Some spaces in front of residential houses you can’t park in front of during certain hours due to street sweepers and some areas you can’t park at all with NO Parking signs in plain view.
Be warned, do so at your own risk. If you’ve got a flashy car, don’t even think about parking in these surrounding neighborhoods as your car will surely be broken into, stolen and stripped by the time you come back.
If you’ve got a 10-year-old Civic, go ahead and park here. Keep all valuables out of sight, lock all your doors and go ahead and take extra precautions like pulling your ignition fuse, one or two spark plug wires under the hood or, if you’ve got it, flipping on that ignition kill switch.
Park at the nearby Denny’s, Burger King, Jack in the Box, La Quinta Inn and Suites etc. ($0)- See this area I’ve linked below? Go ahead and patronize those businesses in that area (or not) park there, and enjoy the game. The Coliseum is just walking distance from these places and is free to park at. Be aware that there may be signs saying that you must be a paying customer to park there, so don’t be a d***h*** and not buy anything.
That’s all I’ve got for you guys.
If you have your OWN tip, go ahead and e-mail it in to info@tiremeetsroad.com or leave a comment below. I’ll add in your suggestion.
