The Environmental Benefits of a Regional Ferry System

The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission––often called BCDC––is a state agency which is responsible for protecting and enhancing Bay resources, as well as encouraging responsible use of the Bay. Permits from the Commission are needed to fill or dredge the Bay and to construct development along the Bay shoreline. The Commission is guided by policies in state law and the San Francisco in making its permit decisions. When the Commission originally drafted the Bay Plan in 1967, it included the following policy:

"The Bay represents a great but, at present, little-used resource for transportation within the region. A system of modern ferries (capable of high speeds with minimum noise and wavers) may be able to provide service between major traffic generators (e.g., between downtown, or between downtowns and airports) and eventually to provide scheduled service from

 one end of the Bay to the other for both commuting and pleasure use."

Like so many imaginative parts of a lot of visionary plans, this policy gathered dust on a shelf for over thirty years. But when the Bay Area Water Transit Task Force approached the Commission with the idea of establishing a modern system of Bay ferries, the Commission quickly endorsed the venture as a way of finally implementing the long-standing Bay Plan policy.

Beyond being consistent with an important policy in California’s program for managing San Francisco Bay, I believe a regional ferry network should appeal to anyone committed to protecting the Bay Area’s natural resources.

There are the obvious potential benefits of reduced air pollution from cars trapped in gridlock; reducing the need to build new freeways and bridges which destroy wetlands; and making urban infill a more viable alternative to suburban sprawl by connecting existing urban areas with high speed transit service.

A ferry network also fits into regional efforts to promote sustainable development and smart growth. The chairs and executive officers of the Bay Area’s five regional agencies have committed themselves to working together on this goal under the leadership of the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Development. These five agencies are the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), the Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), along with BCDC.

We looked for a single issue we could work on together—within our existing legal authorities—that would advance sustainable development and achieve each of our individual mandates. We settled on the idea of encouraging mixed use development around transit stations. From MTC’s perspective, this will result in better use of our regional transit system. For ABAG, it will reduce sprawl and provide more housing closer to jobs. The RWQCB sees mixed use development around transit stations as a way to reduce polluted runoff from roads and parking lots. The appeal for BAAQMD is that it will reduce air pollution from single occupant vehicles. And mixed use development at ferry terminals meets BCDC’s mandate to encourage high quality development along the Bay shoreline and provide more public access to the Bay.

Ferry terminals also provides an exciting urban design opportunity. For over a century, the Bay used to be seen as the back end of shoreline properties. Development faced inland; the Bayside of properties was where deliveries were made and trash collected. BCDC is proud of what it has accomplished in getting shoreline projects to include public access, landscaping, trails and other waterfront amenities. But in many places, the Bay still isn’t someplace to get to. It is just where development—designed just like development everywhere else—stops. Ferry terminals can change this. They are natural destinations: places on the waterfront to go to because, once there, you can keep on going.

To take full advantage of this opportunity, development around ferry terminals should incorporate two features: first, a mix of uses to create communities where people can live, shop, work and play; and second, a sufficient density of development to make land transit service both feasible and frequent.

There is a bad habit we environmentalists have to break. When we look at a proposed development and are concerned about the traffic it will generate, the first thing that comes out of our mouths is: "Reduce the number of units." If we are truly concerned about traffic, what we should be saying is: "Increase the density." Studies by the Sierra Club, the Bay Area Transportation Choices Forum, Greenbelt Alliance, and Urban Ecology all document the same conclusion: as residential density and mixed uses go up, automobile use goes down.

Urban planners used to pitch higher density like bad tasting medicine: nobody likes it but it’s good for you. Increasingly we are finding that higher density is more like organic fruit: It’s good for you and it tastes better. The communities we idealize—places where you can walk to school or to shop, where there are restaurants and activity, where some people can even walk to work, and where you can catch a bus, train or a ferry to more distant destinations—are higher density communities. I’m not talking about megastructures or high rises. We could double or triple the densities we find in most suburbs and still be well below the densities we find in the urban core of the Bay Area, yet dense enough to support transit. Oakland’s mayor Jerry Brown calls this elegant density. That is a very apt description.

Is transit-oriented development the whole solution to suburban sprawl?

Will mixed use development at transit stations solve all our transportation problems?

Is higher density mixed-use development appropriate at all ferry terminals? No. We have to protect our wetlands and other Bay resources. Intense development along sensitive parts of the shoreline can damage these resources. And opposition to multi-unit housing from nearby residents of single-family homes has been one of the biggest obstacles to mixed use higher density development around transit stations. But the Bay Area Water Transit Task Force has been very careful to avoid environmentally sensitive areas when selecting sites for ferry terminals. And most of the ferry terminals aren’t adjacent to single-family neighborhoods.

So I think ferry terminals represent a wonderful opportunity for achieving BCDC’s mission of protecting and enhancing the Bay and encouraging the Bay’s responsible use. In short form we abbreviate this mission statement to: "Dedicated to making San Francisco Bay better."

The Bay, the Bay shoreline, waterfront communities and the entire region will be better if the Bay is graced with a necklace of attractive ferry terminals, designed to be destinations, and surrounded by mixed use communities, built at elegant densities.

Let’s not let this opportunity pass us by.