By land or by sea

Transit projects are expensive and require funds from a variety of sources. The money needed for the construction of the terminal — roughly $20 million — has mostly been secured from the county and the state. However, funding to actually operate the ferry service has yet to be identified. With ferry service to Redwood City also included in the Transportation section of Plan Bay Area 2050, there is hope some or all of the needed money will come from the Federal Transit Administration. Still, I have to wonder what the chances really are, given all the changes now going on at the federal level.

Although I no longer commute to work, I hope ferry service does come to Redwood City. As a longtime mass-transit commuter, I know a lot of folks who commute to San Francisco from Redwood City — or to Redwood City from San Francisco — would find ferry service a nice alternative to Caltrain. And if the ferry runs from Redwood City to somewhere in the East Bay, it would compete favorably with the only viable option available today, which is driving.

As for leisure-time activities, I’d take the ferry on occasion when having a day out in the city. The recent test runs to select Giants games appear to have been a success, showing people would use it to get to some sporting events. Finally, in the event of a major emergency, ferries would prove valuable as an alternative means to evacuate the area and bring in emergency supplies and responders.

Thinking about the possibility of a ferry running to and from Redwood City, I cannot help but consider another mass-transit option that — for nearly a decade — was viewed as a real possibility: the light-rail system listed in Redwood City’s 2020 general plan. That plan includes a map of a proposed layout with three main lines: one running along Broadway between the transit center and Second Avenue; one out to the end of Seaport Boulevard (to the Pacific Shores office complex and to where the ferry terminal would be located); and one running the length of Middlefield Road to Fifth Avenue.

Thanks largely to Redwood City’s general plan and a couple of related specific plans, thousands of people now call downtown Redwood City home, and thousands more now work there. Given such a large influx, one can easily see the logic in looking for ways to move people around using means other than cars. As has proven to work in some cities elsewhere in the country and around the world, light-rail systems are one way to do just that — hence, the proposal in Redwood City’s plan.

Sometime after the general plan was adopted, Redwood City hired a consulting firm to study whether a light-rail system would actually make sense. That feasibility study considered ridership, routes, projected costs and possible alternatives. Ultimately, the consulting firm winnowed the possibilities down to a single initial route — the Broadway line — and presented three options for service along that line. The City Council then reviewed and discussed those options at a meeting in mid-January 2020.

Two of the options were traditional streetcar lines, while the third was what is termed an “urban circulator” — a short-distance, high-frequency bus service that would follow a route similar to what was proposed for the streetcar lines. This last was added as a significantly cheaper, but also less interesting — and less likely to attract riders — option.

After spending more than half a million dollars on the study (which, thankfully, came from grants and from Stanford as part of its development agreement with the city), after just one meeting the Redwood City Council concluded that, given the costs, the results were simply not worth it. A large percentage of the potential ridership would be those going between the transit center and Stanford’s Redwood City campus — people already served by Stanford’s free Marguerite Shuttle. So, although some councilmembers would have loved to see light-rail trains running through the city, logic prevailed, and the city’s light-rail dreams, at least for now, came to an end.

Greg Wilson is the creator of Walking Redwood City, a blog inspired by his walks throughout Redwood City and adjacent communities. He can be reached at greg@walkingRedwoodCity.com. Follow Greg on Twitter @walkingRWC.