Jo Koy at Golden 1 Center: getting home to Davis

Jo Koy brings the Koy Meets World Tour to Golden 1 Center on Saturday, November 14. The venue lists doors at 7:00pm and the show at 8:00pm, at 500 David J Stern Walk in downtown Sacramento (Golden 1 Center) The tour's own page lists the same date at the same arena (jokoy.com).

An 8pm start is late, and on a Saturday that one hour decides the whole trip home. Here is the night in the order it goes wrong.

Getting there is the easy half

Saturday means the weekend column on the train and the bus. November 14 is not on Capitol Corridor's holiday list — Thanksgiving week is — so it is the plain weekend table.

• Train: on the Weekend Eastbound table in force today, the 6:36pm from Davis reaches Sacramento at 7:03pm, just as doors open (Capitol Corridor). Sacramento Valley Station is at 401 I Street at 5th, and Capitol Corridor's events page puts the arena a six-minute, 0.3-mile walk away (Sports & Entertainment).
• Bus: Yolobus Route 42B runs the loop from campus into downtown. Its Saturday table has a 6:13pm from the UC Davis Memorial Union reaching L & 5th (Golden 1 Center) at 7:18pm.

The last train home leaves during the show

On the Weekend Westbound table in force today, the last train out of Sacramento leaves at 8:53pm and reaches Davis at 9:09pm. The one before it goes at 6:53pm, before doors (Capitol Corridor). Against an 8:00pm start, the last train is gone while the show is still in its first hour. There is no version of this night where the train brings you home.

Nothing wrong with the train itself: sixteen minutes, Sacramento to Davis, on that same table. The hours are the problem.

The bus home: two times, and a different corner

Route 42A is the same loop run clockwise, the direction that carries you from downtown back to campus. Its Saturday table, as published today, has two late departures from L & 5th: 10:12pm, reaching the Memorial Union at 11:05pm, and 10:57pm, reaching it at 11:50pm. After that, the table is done.

Nobody publishes when the set ends, so do not count on the earlier one. Treat 10:57 as the bus you cannot miss: if it leaves without you, nothing else is coming.

Then the catch. SacRT lists the L St at 5th stop as closed during Golden 1 Center events, with riders sent to L St at 9th (SacRT). That is the corner the 42A table names. Walk the four blocks on the way in, so you are not finding the stop for the first time at 10:50 with an arena emptying behind you. Check both pages the week of the show.

Driving: the pass runs out too

Golden 1 Center runs no lots of its own. It points you to pre-paid passes on the City of Sacramento's SacPark site, and the arena garages open two hours before the event. A pre-purchased pass is good until two hours after the event. Spaces are first-come, first-served, a specific garage "is subject to availability and is not guaranteed", and there is no shuttle from the downtown garages (Directions & Parking). Buy ahead, and leave with time on the pass.

Once you are downtown

SacRT light rail stops sit about a block from the arena, and your return trip starts at a different stop than where you got off, because the trains run on one-way streets downtown (SacRT). Useful inside Sacramento. None of it reaches Davis.

Or go with someone who is already going

Cars go from Davis to downtown on a Saturday evening and come back after the show, and most cars on any road have empty seats.

That is what TAGO is for: a carpool for students. Sign in with your .edu email, say where you are going, and see who else is going the same way. No fleet, no dispatcher — students with a car and students without one, sharing the cost of a trip that was happening anyway.

Three things that matter on a late Saturday:

The way back is planned with the way out. For events and places, the return leg is part of the same plan, settled in the afternoon instead of on David J Stern Walk at 10:50.

Your share has a ceiling. What a rider contributes can never exceed the IRS standard mileage rate for the day of the trip, and past the first eight miles the per-mile rate eases down. How ride costs split walks through it.

Rated both ways. Riders rate drivers, and drivers rate riders. Is carpooling with students safe? sets out what we check, and what we don't.

Nobody can tell you a car will be there. Whether one exists depends on who is going that night, which is why posting early beats searching late. The Jo Koy in Sacramento on TAGO page shows what has been posted. Routes and names stay private until you sign in with your .edu.

Before Saturday

1. Plan around the train home. On the weekend table, 8:53pm is the last one. Decide this week how you get back, not at 10:45pm.
2. Write down two times: 10:12pm and 10:57pm, the last 42A departures. Board at L & 9th if the event-night closure holds.
3. Driving? Buy the SacPark pass ahead. It stops being valid two hours after the event.
4. Bags: clutches and wallets smaller than 8" x 6" x 1", subject to inspection; medical and parental bags go through the X-ray (Golden 1 Center). A day pack is not getting in, and there is nowhere to leave it.
5. Agree a meeting point before you go in, and who is leaving for which bus.