Public Comment

I share James McVaney’s enthusiasm for a Berkeley Ferry, but in his letter of May 5 I believe he has a few very important things wrong. 

While it is attractive to believe that ferry traffic will be good for nearby businesses and enhance marina lease revenue, there is actually no basis for this belief. In fact, other Bay Area examples (Larkspur Landing being the most relevant) have demonstrated just the opposite effect. Parking overflow, parking time limits and parking permit requirements all reduce access to nearby businesses, and patronage by ferry-riding commuters falls far short of offsetting these effects. The restaurant closest to the proposed terminal site opposes the project for good reason. 

James McVaney suggests parking along University Avenue, or in offsite lots with shuttle busses. Presumably the ferry passengers would be prevented from using the free parking areas much closer to the terminal by means of parking permits issued only to those with reasons to park there other than riding the ferry. But this leaves the vast majority of casual marina visitors with no access: Boat owners have guests, kids are brought to Adventure Playground, families picnic in Shorebird Park, people stop to check out sailing or kayak lessons at Cal Sailing Club or Cal Adventures. And a large number of people simply drive to the water to look out over the bay, or take a walk out on the fishing pier. 

James, do you really think this kind of access will not be significantly and negatively impacted if they all have to stop to get parking permits first? 

More to the point, it’s unlikely that remote parking and shuttle buses will ever be feasible from a ferry marketing point of view. That’s not what ferry passengers expect. The ferry is only viable for the majority of riders if they can park reasonably close to the boat. 

Yes, a true feeder bus system would be great. Not because it would work for most ferry commuters, but because it would improve access to the waterfront for everyone, even those who don’t take the ferry. And, because it would divert some of the funding from relatively wasteful ferry subsidies to much more useful local bus routes. I would love to see WETA include this as an integral part of their proposal, but so far they show no inclination to go in that direction. 

Now for the “emergency” part of Emergency Transportation. The Berkeley Marina is home port to five Hornblower excursion boats, some of them considerably larger in passenger capacity than the ferries proposed for this route. They routinely maneuver inside the marina with no particular hazard to navigation or to marina berthers. Hornblower has a basic but fully functional terminal facility already in place behind the Doubletree hotel. These vessels are in a perfect position to serve in an emergency, if appropriate agreements were in place. But if you download the emergency plan from the WETA website at www.watertransit.org, and search for the word “Hornblower” you will come up blank. Yet WETA uses “emergency transportation” to justify spending $20 million on a duplicate terminal. 

Finally, I need to correct some disinformation about the eelgrass near the racetrack sites. It all died. This was never an eelgrass habitat, and the test patch planted a few years ago as remediation for some eelgrass destruction near the Bay Bridge was a failure. There may be other good reasons for avoiding the racetrack sites (at least, there may have been at the time the decision was made—the status of the track is in flux) but eelgrass is not one of them. 

The way to make the Berkeley ferry work is to keep the scale of the service small, so the parking and traffic loads fit within the capacity of the existing infrastructure. This means a lighter schedule, higher ticket prices and less public subsidy. But level of service was never one of the variables in the various EIR alternatives, and that’s why they need to go back and start the process over. 

It’s frustrating, because I’d like to see the ferry start operation as soon as possible. But not if it turns our diverse and active waterfront into a single-purpose wasteland of parked cars. 

Paul Kamen is a naval architect.