I believe in ferries

I later learned that the ferry and those buses were part of a six-month pilot program in which an unnamed “large private employer” (Facebook, I’m guessing) had enlisted a private ferry company to shuttle some of its workers between Redwood City and San Francisco, Tiburon and Emeryville. Each weekday two boats made a total of five trips each during the morning and the evening commutes.

Those ferries no longer seem to be making that particular run, indicating that the pilot program may not have justified making the program permanent. However, plans for a public ferry service operating out of Redwood City have been in the works for well over 10 years now, and with the recent completion of a “Financial Feasibility Study and Cost Benefit & Economic Impact Analyses,” the project is proceeding to the next step: a business plan.

Unlike the private ferry service I witnessed, this new one would be operated by WETA, the Water Emergency Transportation Authority. WETA is the regional public transit agency that currently provides ferry service between Alameda, Oakland, Richmond, San Francisco, South San Francisco and Vallejo; adding Redwood City would allow them to extend their service toward the south end of the Bay. In Redwood City, this new service would operate from a new terminal built on a parcel at the very end of Seaport Boulevard, land that is owned by the Port of Redwood City but is leased to Cemex, a concrete and cement manufacturing company. The area required for the new ferry terminal doesn’t appear to be heavily used by Cemex, fortunately, and can likely be spared.

Calling it a terminal may conjure up images of something grand but, in reality, the ferry terminal would consist of little more than a parking lot (that can accommodate 250 cars), a bus stop and passenger drop-off area, and a new dock sized to handle either one or two ferries at one time, depending upon how the business is to operate. Although there would likely be a small shelter, there would be no indoor facilities, and no public restrooms. In total, the Redwood City ferry terminal should cost between $15 million and $20 million.

The real cost would be for the 320-passenger ferries themselves, which run about $16 million apiece. Depending upon the degree of service to be provided, between two and five new vessels would be needed. If regular commute-time service between Redwood City and both San Francisco and Oakland is to be provided, four vessels would be needed (two for each route), plus a spare. A more limited service, perhaps only serving one of those destinations, could be implemented with two new vessels, plus a portion of a spare vessel shared with other WETA ferry services.

The one-way journey between Redwood City and either Oakland or San Francisco would take about an hour. The San Francisco service would of course need to compete with Caltrain, which is not only quicker but, likely, cheaper. Even so, the feasibility study estimated that the San Francisco ferry service would start out with approximately 1,300 total boardings per weekday, a number that would rise to almost 2,200 by the year 2040. As for the Oakland route, it is estimated to start with around 850 boardings per weekday, rising to nearly 1,900 by 2040.

Given the terminal’s proposed location, one of the key challenges is to solve the “last mile” problem: getting people living in the mid-Peninsula to the ferry terminal, and transporting those coming in from San Francisco or Oakland to their places of employment. Driving and some sort of shuttle or light rail system could take care of the former, while a combination of private employee shuttles and public transit from the terminal to downtown Redwood City would handle much of the latter. But those details need to be worked out, and area employers need to buy in if they are to provide shuttle service.

Although a number of challenges still remain before this new service can take to the water, there is a real chance that by 2024 people will be commuting to and from Redwood City via passenger ferries. I, for one, hope that those challenges can be overcome. A regular ferry service operating out of the Port of Redwood City would be a real feather in Redwood City’s cap.

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.