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Note/Update: Service was suspended Wednesday evening, July 17. Check the city of Alameda page for updates!
Some 30 people lined up at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning to ride the first Oakland Alameda water shuttle from Jack London Square to Bohol Circle Immigrant Park in Western Alameda. "This is so easy, so fast," said Alameda Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, who participated in the inaugural run across the estuary of the bright yellow boat named "Woodstock."
As previously reported, less than 900 feet of water separate the residential neighborhood of Jack London Square from Western Alameda and its expansive shopping district. Additionally, thousands of residents in Western Alameda's new condos and apartments have no easy way to reach Jack London Square without a car. The Woodstock ferry is free to use and is funded by a grant from the cities of Oakland, Alameda, and other sources.
Bus options also exist to get between Western Alameda and Oakland, but they all require significant backtracking and long waits by heavily trafficked roads—only to slog through the same tunnel congestion with drivers. Now, at long last, there's a viable, peaceful, inviting, traffic-free option for cyclists and pedestrians to get across.
"This is a great connection for bikes and totally different from our conventional ferries," explained Seamus Murphy, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority, which is operating the new shuttle boat. "We're starting slow with an opportunity to improve the frequency."
Right now the boat will only leave every 30 minutes, with a two-hour break midday for refueling and a crew change. However, even on its inaugural trip it left a passenger on the deck—the boat has a maximum capacity of 30 people. Jordan Baehr ended up left behind on the first run from Alameda to Oakland, scheduled to leave at 7:15 a.m. "I'm disappointed I couldn't get on, but I'm pleased it left early when it was full rather than waiting for no reason," he told Streetsblog.
In fact, the mayor, Seamus, and others said the initial service schedule—it will only run from Wednesday through Sunday—is meant to gauge demand while more funds are sought. Murphy said the hope is to eventually get it up to 15-minute headways and make it a truly robust, reliable connection between Amtrak, BART, and the shopping and residents of Western Alameda. The crossing itself only takes about three minutes.
"I'm fired up for this thing," said Steve Ashbaker with the Alameda Chamber of Commerce who lives in a condo right above Bohol Circle Immigrant Park.
Meanwhile, Brian McGuire, a planner with the city of Alameda, watched the ferry run back and forth like a proud parent seeing off his kid to college. McGuire worked for years getting the service started and even flew to Buffalo, New York to buy the boat in the first place.
Even before he worked for the city, he advocated with Bike Walk Alameda to find a way to establish a viable crossing between Western Alameda and Jack London.
He told Streetsblog he hopes this will become a dependable way for people to get to Alameda for shopping and for people to connect to BART and Amtrak in reverse. "It's also a way for Oakland residents to do a very luxurious deodorant run to Target," he joked.
Ultimately, however, all those involved see the ferry as a precursor to what's really needed—a bike and pedestrian bridge. "This is exciting. But it doesn't replace the need for a bridge," said Ashcraft.
