Hijacking this thread to add my advice about the SJ/SC commute. I lived in SJ downtown and commuted daily to UCSC campus for around a year. If you don’t mind the time spent in the car it is a pretty reasonable reverse commute. Usually took me about an hour each way. The main thing to look out for is that you will be going over HWY 17 which is a two lane mountain road on each side. Some people don’t mind the 17 at all, for others it causes pretty intense anxiety. In the rainy winters there are frequent crashes that cause delays. I won’t add much in the way of commentary regarding safety, but I will say I’ve seen more upside down cars on that commute than I ever assumed a person would reasonably see. I eventually moved my family to SC proper as it made more sense for us. However there are a number of UCSC Faculty who I know make the commute daily, and have done so for years. I do not know the current status of the 17 express bus, but you can look into that as well. In non-pandemic times I know some people have great success commuting on that line.