San Francisco Bay Ferry is already the best way to cross the Bay, as thousands of daily commuters and recreational travelers know. This is a unique opportunity to reimagine water transit across the region. We want even more people to have the opportunity to enjoy the ferry life in the coming decades. Looking ahead, we’re committed to making ferry travel not only more accessible, but also more sustainable and climate resilient.
Our vision for the future, as set forth in the 2050 Service Vision includes stronger ferry networks that are sustainable, accessible, and built for resilience in the face of a changing climate, as incorporated by the 4Es.
The 2050 Service Vision is grounded in four key priorities — the “4 E’s”: Enhance, Expand, Electrify, and Emergency Response. These pillars guide our approach to growing a ferry system that is regionally connected, socially equitable, and environmentally sustainable.
The SF Bay Ferry enhancement will benefit 2.7 million residents with increased service frequencies, offering 20–30 minute headways on most ferry routes during peak hours. By incrementally adding new services between core terminals, this will prioritize routes exhibiting the strongest market potential. The ferry system will offer three primary types of service: local service connecting dense urban hubs, regional service linking major activity centers over medium to long distances, and special event service to venues with existing terminals. The plan also emphasizes increasing midday, evening, and weekend service to provide consistent, all-day, every-day availability. Additionally, the enhancement of the core network will expand the system’s emergency response capabilities, increasing both reach and capacity.
The SF Bay Ferry expansion will connect 25% more residents and jobs to ferry service, expanding to 14 routes that link communities across the Bay Area. Key strategies include expanding service frequency on existing routes to support all-day ridership, implementing regional priority projects aligned with Plan Bay Area—such as connections from Mission Bay and Treasure Island to the Ferry Building, Berkeley to San Francisco, and Oakland to Redwood City—and exploring innovative service models like short-hop routes within cities such as San Francisco, Oakland/Alameda, and Vallejo/Mare Island.
The SF Bay Ferry electrification will create the nation’s first 100% electrified ferry system, preventing 38,000 tons of carbon emissions annually. For example, SF Bay Ferry’s Rapid Electric Emission-Free Ferry (REEF) Program is a transformative suite of projects to transition our fleet to zero-emission propulsion technology. The program includes the electrification of our ferry floats and the development of the nation’s first high-speed, high-capacity zero-emission vessels.
The SF Bay Ferry enhancement will boost emergency preparedness with a 61% increase in evacuation capacity across the system. San Francisco Bay Ferry serves as the coordinator of water-based emergency response activities in the Bay Area in the event of a major disaster or disruptive event. In this capacity, San Francisco Bay Ferry will work closely with the California Office of Emergency Services and will be directed to perform activities coordinated on a regional and state-wide basis. All new expansion terminals will be designed and built to Essential Facilities Standards. Emergency service to individual terminals will be guided based on state and regional direction.
The SF Bay Ferry will soon release a draft of its 2050 Business Plan, which focuses on ferry service expansion, emergency response, environmental sustainability, and more.
The “Bay Ferry 2050” project has been a visioning effort to reimagine the ferry system in the Bay Area looking ahead to 2050, including its service level and emergency response capabilities. The Business Plan details the specific steps to make this vision a reality. To develop the vision and inform the draft Business Plan, SF Bay Ferry has been engaging the public and stakeholders through advisory groups, online surveys, and stakeholder meetings since the project kicked off in November 2021.
When published, the Draft Business Plan will be available here.
Key Areas of SF Bay Ferry’s Draft Business Plan include:
Recent Draft Plan Updates to expansion, electrification, and service enhancement:
How to Stay Updated:
Check the SF Bay Ferry website for updates on the agency’s plans and activities and sign up for the mailing list here.
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Participate in public meetings to stay informed.
Through extensive community and stakeholder engagement from 2021 – 2024, the public and key stakeholders coalesced around six key focus areas to guide the 2050 Business Plan. These focus areas will provide a foundation for the Business Plan.
This focus area characterizes the long-term market potential of expanding ferry service on San Francisco Bay and SF Bay Ferry’s potential role as ferry network manager. A key input will be ridership demand forecasts of current and potential services, and the identification of key service objectives. A goal is to identify a broad package of service models and coordination opportunities, including both WETA-operated service and services provided by other public or private operators. WETA service model(s) will include criteria to identify feasible markets (new services) and appropriate levels of service (enhanced services).
This focus area broadly defines goals related to the functionality (e.g., first responders, evacuation, economic recovery), capacity, and geographic reach (e.g., by terminal location, population, span of shoreline) of a comprehensive water emergency transportation system. This area will consider system resilience in the context of a seismically-active and climate-impacted environment. These goals will serve as the basis for evaluating whether SF Bay Ferry’s current approach and service model is meeting demand and its mandate as a provider and coordinator of water emergency response services and what additional resources or organizational capacity may be required.
This focus area presents SF Bay Ferry's commitments for protecting species and habitat on and along San Francisco Bay and its responsibilities for operating services that promote public goals to ensure environmental justice, limit noise and air pollution, reduce VMT, and curb greenhouse gas emissions. A key input will be the development of a fleet plan that considers the timeframe, cost, and feasibility of implementing emerging zero-emission technologies on current and future SF Bay Ferry ferry vessels. This area will also consider criteria for terminal siting and terminal access that supports local, regional, and state environmental goals.
This focus area articulates priorities for promoting and providing connections between regional ferry service and the communities it serves. A goal is to broaden the appeal of ferry service, not only as a business strategy, but also to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion. Policies considered would integrate regional ferry services with a mix of land-side uses and the areas they serve, create seamless transit connections, and ensure affordable fares, schedules that offer service during non-traditional commute hours, and public awareness of regional ferry services. Providing a high-quality passenger experience will continue to be a SF Bay Ferry priority.
This focus area identifies the depth and breadth of organizational capacity required by SF Bay Ferry. The anticipated timeframe and implementation schedule of SF Bay Ferry’s overall service vision will influence the scale of SF Bay Ferry’s organizational capacity. The scale and range of organizational capacity will also be a function of the roles that SF Bay Ferry will be responsible for and its staffing approach.
This focus area identifies near-term and long-term strategies for funding the overall service vision that balance financial sustainability and equity as key SF Bay Ferry objectives. A financial projection of total costs, both capital and operating, to deliver the service vision and an assessment of current and future funding available will be prepared. Priorities will be set to guide the use or leverage of limited available funds. Traditional and innovative approaches will be evaluated as strategies for securing additional funding, including public-private partnerships.
Phase 1: Service Vision
From 2021 – 2023, SF Bay Ferry conducted community engagement to understand the priorities of key stakeholders and the Bay Area public for future ferry service. Engagement to date has included: 3 meetings of a community advisory group and a business advisory group, 2 WETA Board workshops, a public online poll, a public online survey, 9 community based organization (CBO) listening sessions, and 6 county working groups.
These engagements informed the development of a series of ferry service visions that were then evaluated against a set of possible futures, and ultimately helped to shape the Service Vision and Focus Areas. This approach to planning helps ensure Bay Area ferry service is responsive to public needs and resilient to whatever the future may hold.
Here’s what we heard about community priorities for the future of ferry service:
We also heard the following ideas and considerations:
Please read the following summaries and data snapshots for more detail on what we heard through the first few rounds of community engagement.
On February 15, 2024 and February 16, 2024, SF Bay Ferry and CivicMakers convened the Community and Business Advisory Groups for a third Advisory Group meeting. The purpose of these meetings was to provide feedback on the Draft Service Vision, including service maps and feasibility criteria.
On January 18, 2023 and January 25, 2023, SF Bay Ferry and CivicMakers convened a virtual Business Advisory Group and a virtual Community Advisory Group, respectively. The purpose of these meetings was to provide an update about SF Bay Ferry’s evaluations of its draft service expansion concepts and gather input.
On June 16, 2022 and July 13, 2022, SF Bay Ferry convened virtual Business and Community Advisory Groups, respectively. SF Bay Ferry also convened five City and County Working Groups comprised of local planning and transportation staff. The purpose of these meetings was to gather initial input to inform the draft service expansion concepts.
WETA Board Workshop
On April 17, 2023, SF Bay Ferry hosted a public Board of Directors’ workshop to to review the final evaluation results and discuss a proposal by staff for developing a final 2050 Service Vision.
On August 17, 2022, SF Bay Ferry hosted a public Board of Directors’ workshop to discuss and inform the development a final set of future service scenarios to be evaluated over the last four months of 2022.
Quick Priorities Poll
From July 11, 2022 through August 31, 2022, SF Bay Ferry asked members of the Bay Area public to share their priorities and preferences for future ferry service through a quick online poll on BayFerry2050.org. Responses reflect a desire for SF Bay Ferry to make changes to its service schedule and locations to grow future ridership (see chart below). For more information about what was shared, please review a full summary of the poll questions and responses from over 1,300 members of the Bay Area region.
Online Survey
From January 30, 2023 through March 24, 2023, SF Bay Ferry asked members of the Bay Area public to share their preferences for how the ferry system should balance affordability, service frequency and speed, expansion, and environmental sustainability through an online survey. The survey was promoted and distributed by a variety of ferry system partners and advocates across the region, including the offices of elected officials, through social media channels, and directly to current ferry riders. In total, 4,568 people from across the region completed the survey.
Key Takeaways:
When considering what factors impact someone’s decision to ride the ferry, SF Bay Ferry observed some consistent themes across the survey questions.
Amenities and environmental impact had minimal effect on people’s decisions to ride the ferry, however, environmental conservation did rank more highly in terms of values/visions for the future of the ferry system.
When visioning SF Bay Ferry and water transportation in 2050, the top four outcomes that respondents prioritized were:
Read the full report here.
A Few Personal Vision Statements from the Public:
"I wake up on a chilly Saturday morning and bike down to my local ferry terminal. I want to see a new city. The ticker updates with the latest schedule. Looks like there’s a service to Richmond in 30 minutes. I grab a coffee, hunker down with my book and wonder if I should stop at Jack London Square in the afternoon. And I wait for the ferry. It’s not a flashy image, but I quite like it. Not beholden to cars and parking, I’m free to wander the Bay on the ferry and my bike.”
“[The ferry system would look] much like today but with a few more destinations and with electric-powered vessels. Service locations should be demand-based, prioritizing locations with a high density of housing units or jobs within 1/4 mile [of the terminal], or highly-coordinated transit transfer points, plus major attractions like our waterfront sports arenas."
“Interconnection with special events (including arts and culture, not just sports), so that Bay Area residents can go to concerts, plays, festivals, parades, etc., by ferry. Yes, we should serve commuters too, but after Covid, we may never get back to the same "rush hour" schedule as in the past. We need to have ferries serving people who want to go to the East Bay from the Peninsula, which is currently a horrible drive that nobody wants to make, so we just don't go there. And East Bay people need to be able to come to the Peninsula for high-paying jobs -- that's a social justice issue.”
“The ferry should run frequently and be reliable. It should reach a point where you don't really need to schedule your day around the ferry's schedule because you can depend on the ferry running whenever you want it to (within operational hours). It should connect seamlessly to other forms of commuting, e.g. BART or bus services.”
Page last updated: 23 May 2024,
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