Is this true in practice? How big of a hassle is it if you don't have a car (and don't want to spring for an expensive taxi/Uber ride)?
(This reputation is a big reason why I don't want to ever move to the Bay Area. I currently live in Brooklyn, and can easily get home from Manhattan in 20 minutes... at 3am if I want to. In Cambridge/Boston the T shuts down, but not until around midnight and you can still bike or walk.)
(Edit: I was misinformed. I'd heard the BART shuts down at around 10pm, but it seems it's actually more like midnight, similar to the Boston area, and I didn't know there were all-night buses providing service between SF and Oakland when BART is closed.)
You could take the all nighter AC transit bus (get a clipper card) http://transit.511.org/accessible/schedules/routeinfo.aspx?c... which runs from SF to the east bay.
Though biking a 5 mile long bridge with no bike lane on half of it sounds terrifying, so I'd probably consider it still not bikeable for now.
After midnight, I took lyft back from Polk for $35.
Around 11pm, I took uber back from Mission Bay for $29.
Around 2am, I took AC transit bus back. The people taking it were cool, but it was a hassle for two reasons: finding the right bus stop in the city (and timing it) and its stopping about 15 minutes away from my place (not ideal at 2am).
The regular transbay busses that depart from the transbay bus terminal are much better (the F stops right in front of my place), but they don't run during the wee hours of the morning.
That being said, I really like living in Emeryville because of the gentrification of nearby Oakland and Berkeley.