Richmond Ferry Terminal (historically Ellis Landing) is a

ferry terminal A passenger terminal is a structure in a port which services passengers boarding and leaving water vessels such as ferry, ferries, cruise ships and ocean liners. Depending on the types of vessels serviced by the terminal, it may be named (for e ...

located in the Marina Bay neighborhood of

Richmond, California Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was municipal corporation, incorporated on August 3, 1905, and has a Richmond, California, City Council, city council.

. It provides daily commuter service to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

History

The terminal is located at Ford Point on the Richmond Inner Harbor which opens in to

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...

. Ford Point derives its name from the historic Ford Plant that is located adjacent and has been converted to an

industrial park An industrial park, also known as industrial estate or trading estate, is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more heavyweight version of a business park or office par ...

and event space. The location was originally called Ellis Landing, which was a shipping port since 1849. Schooners transported agricultural products from Contra Costa to San Francisco from that port, and brought back supplies for "mining districts up the river."

Red and White fleet service

The terminal hosted a commuter ferry service to the

San Francisco Ferry Building The San Francisco Ferry Building is a terminal station, terminal for ferry, ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay, a food hall and an office building. It is located on Embarcadero (San Francisco), The Embarcadero in San Francisco, Ca ...

weekdays and Fisherman's Wharf on weekends in addition to special

AT&T Park Oracle Park is a ballpark in the South of Market, San Francisco, SoMa district of San Francisco, California. Since 2000, it has been the home of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball (MLB). The stadium stands along San Francisco Bay ...

service during the

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

season with a voyage taking approximately 45 minutes one-way. The service began in 1999, but was discontinued in the late 2000s in the economic downturn following the

dot-com bust The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Intern ...

. Ferry ridership plummeted and the service became economically unsustainable, which led Red and White Fleet to discontinue the service. Ridership was 45 per trip while about 200 were needed for fiscal sustainability.Richmond hoping ferry service can be revived
by Katherine Tam, ''

West County Times The ''East Bay Times'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, United States, owned by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of Media News Group, that serves Contra Costa and Alameda counties, in the East B ...

'', July 10, 2008, access date July 13, 2008 The terminal had its own dedicated

AC Transit AC Transit is the main Public transport bus service, bus transit operator in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, California. AC Transit is the third largest bus operator in California, serving the western portions of Alameda and C ...

feeder service from Point Richmond and downtown Richmond with route 374 also now discontinued.

San Francisco Bay Ferry planning

In 2007 most of the Richmond City Council except

Tom Butt Thomas King Butt (born March 23, 1944) is an American politician and architect and the former mayor of Richmond, California. He was vice-mayor in 2002 and 2012 and a member of the Richmond City Council for over 20 years before being elected mayo ...

and Mayor

Gayle McLaughlin Gayle McLaughlin (born 1952) is an American politician from Richmond, California. She was first elected to the Richmond City Council in 2004 when she was a member of the Green Party of California. She won two consecutive four-year terms as the ...

had lost interest in the project, instead supporting using the site for expanded Toyota vehicle importation parking, in which said company has expressed an interest. The impetus for the reinstated ferry service continued in 2008 when the powers behind planning the project determined that there needed to be 750 "rooftops" within a half mile of the terminal site to generate significant and sustainable ridership figures. Senator

Don Perata Don Richard Perata (born April 30, 1945) is a California lobbyist
and former California State Proposition 1B The California state elections, 2006 took place on November 7, 2006. Necessary primary elections were held on June 6. Among the elections that took place were all the seats of the California's State Assembly, 20 seats of the State Senate, seve ...

for studies of several ferry proposals including new Richmond-San Francisco service; the Richmond study is planned to commence in the summer of 2008. In 2012 WETA rebranded as the San Francisco Bay Ferry began operation of its first new ferry run, the South San Francisco Ferry and as such began exploring opportunities for additional new services was launched.Officials showcase proposed Richmond commuter ferry
Spencer Whitley, ''Richmond Confidential'', 22-06-2012, access date 03-07-2012 Planning meetings were held to reopen and remodel the terminal at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond's Marina Bay. A public comment period found that there were concerns for walking distance between ferry and parking and also bicycle parking. An environmental review was ordered to last up to nine months. Funding was approved in 2015, with service then expected to begin in 2018. In April 2016, the

San Francisco Ferry building The San Francisco Ferry Building is a terminal station, terminal for ferry, ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay, a food hall and an office building. It is located on Embarcadero (San Francisco), The Embarcadero in San Francisco, Ca ...

secured a $4 million federal grant. The funds were used for construction of new berths beginning in 2017 Tideline started offering a private 35 minute US$11 one-way service to the

from a separate pier in the Marina Bay District in 2017, but discontinued it several years later.

San Francisco Bay Ferry service

On January 10, 2019, after delays, the San Francisco Bay Ferry launched its service from this terminal. The journey to the

takes approximately 35 minutes. The regular fare is $US 6.75 with free parking compared with BART trains from the nearby El Cerrito Plaza station for $7.50 plus an additional $4 for parking to downtown San Francisco. Passengers stated to the media that they felt "safer" using the ferry compared to BART. While mayor

stated that he felt the new ferry system was positive with regards to development in the city. The service provides an alternative to what is dubbed as one of the "worst" commutes in the region (Interstate 80). The ferry service was initially project to carry an estimated 400 passengers daily increasing to a peak of up to 1,800 when fully developed. Weekend service is planned to support visitors to the adjacent Craneway Pavilion and the nearby Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park. 35 million dollars in Regional Measure 3 funds are earmarked for the expanded service however court challenges to the $3 Bay Area bridge toll increase have tied up the funds. Although mayor Butt believed the terminal would help development city councilmember Eduardo Martinez quipped that there should be affordable housing included in one of the Bay Area's last "bastions of affordability". Currently four ferries depart each weekday morning starting at 6:10am and continuing until 8:40am. Return trips from San Francisco run from 4:30pm to 6:50pm. There are also two

reverse commute A reverse commute is a round trip, regularly taken, from an urban area to a suburban one in the morning, and returning in the evening. It is almost universally applied to trips to work in the suburbs from homes in the city. This is in opposition ...

trips going both ways. Fares are $9 one-way however if paying with a contactless Clipper card the charge is $6.75 moreover youth, seniors, and disabled passengers paid $4.50 with children 5 and under riding free as of January 4, 2019. Passengers riding to the terminal on AC Transit's route 74, a 10-minute ride from the downtown Richmond station, receive a $2.25 discount on their fare. Bike lockers and bike racks have been installed at the terminal as well. New condos were built near the ferry and the developer cited the proximity to it for their development. Melvin Willis one of Richmond's rotating vice mayors stated there should be "vigilance" regarding the project in not pricing people out nor raising rents and causing gentrification. Betty Reid Soskin a park ranger at the national monument however stated she hoped it would be a boost for business in the area and lead to the terminal becoming the East Bay's gateway to

Alcatraz Alcatraz Island () is a small island about 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco in San Francisco Bay, California, near the Golden Gate Strait. The island was developed in the mid-19th century with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fo ...

. By June 2019, six months into the service it met its ridership goals six years early with 740 boardings a day with projected ridership of 480 that early on. Weekend service will begin in August 2019 according to mayor Butt. The service will be on a three-month trial basis with regular fares and departure times as early as 9:30am from Richmond and returning service as late as 8:20pm from San Francisco with 5 trips each way spread out more or less evenly throughout the day. The trial will begin August 3 and last through the first week of November.Ferry Will Run On Weekends On Trial Basis Beginning In August
'' SF Gate''

References

External links

Official webpageDesign summary of current terminal
{{Richmond, California 2019 establishments in California Ferry terminals in the San Francisco Bay Area Transportation buildings and structures in Contra Costa County, California Richmond, California Transport infrastructure completed in 2019 San Francisco Bay Trail