Will the Marin’s first transportation hub, become its future transportation hub?

By F. Weston Starratt, P.E.

Talk to Marin County Supervisor Steve Kinsey, and you become convinced that the North Bay’s original transportation hub will become the area’s future transportation hub. Kinsey envisions a "world class transit center" at Point San Quentin, with

» High-speed ferries to San Francisco and destinations throughout the Bay;

» Rail connections to San Rafael and then north on the Northwestern Pacific right-of-way to Novato, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, and beyond;

» Express bus service along the Highway 101 corridor and across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to points in the East Bay and connections to BART; and

» Parking and improved freeway connections.

To Supervisor Kinsey, "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"

It sounds impressive, and, in a way, reflects back almost 150 years to a time when water transportation was the only reliable means of getting around in the Bay Area, and when promontories such as Point San Quentin became stopping points for ferries and river steamers. So it was, that San Quentin became the gateway to the outside world for the residents of the little town of San Rafael as early as 1855. Later, a toll road was built from San Rafael across the marsh to connect with boats at San Quentin landing. It was followed in 1870 by the 3 ½-mile-long San Rafael & San Quentin Railroad which had one locomotive and one passenger car. An historian of the day wrote, "we … step into an elegant car, and in eight or ten minutes step off the car onto the steamer." Several years later, the North Coast Railroad reached San Rafael, gobbled up the little railroad, and established its own scheduled ferry service from San Quentin to San Francisco. That service continued until a fire destroyed the wharf at San Quentin.

But, in 1916 Point San Quentin once more became a transportation hub with the establishment of automobile ferry service to Richmond. Initially, it operated from the rebuilt wharf at San Quentin landing. Later, the ferry operator built a new terminal on a nearby site, and operated service until the completion of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge in 1956. Thus, Point San Quentin has always been a transportation hub for Marin County and continues so today with the freeway connection to the bridge.

Steve Kinsey’s vision of a future transportation hub at Point San Quentin is shared by others in Marin County, but there are countless problems to be solved. To begin with, the site for the old ferry landing is now occupied by the bridge, and the automobile ferry terminal is now rotting in the mud in an inaccessible location north of the bridge. That leaves the grounds of San Quentin Prison as the only site for the hub.

Established in 1852 to counter the rampant lawlessness in California, San Quentin is the oldest and probably the largest prison in the state. It completely occupies the south end of the tip of the San Quentin Peninsula. It is adjacent to the Corte Madera Channel which leads to the Larkspur Landing Ferry Terminal. That channel is maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers from the deep water of the bay past San Quentin to the turning basin at Larkspur Landing.

The prison site includes a quarry, and occupies land that appears to have been leveled and extended into the Bay along Corte Madera Creek. So, the site is not only flat and adjacent to the channel, but it is considerably closer to deep water than Larkspur Landing, thus requiring less dredging. It is the ideal site for a ferry terminal. In fact, when the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway & Transportation District was planning a ferry terminal, the project engineer, Kaiser Engineers, investigated the acquisition of a portion of the prison property for the ferry terminal, only to be turned down by the State Department of Corrections. So, an old crushed-rock-loading terminal farther up the channel at Larkspur Landing became the compromise site for the ferry terminal.