S.F. Bay Ferry may cut fares, boost service
As public transit agencies across the Bay Area wrestle with cutting service and preserving revenue to stay alive during the pandemic, the San Francisco Bay Ferry is considering a different approach: boosting routes and lowering prices to bring passengers back.
The San Francisco Bay Ferry, which crisscrosses the water from the city to regional destinations, may lower fares for a year, add more offpeak trips and simplify payment options to get riders back.
“We don’t want to sit back and hope and wait for riders to return,” the agency’s executive director, Seamus Murphy, told The Chronicle on Sunday. “We want to really aggressively become relevant again to a ridership that might look a whole lot different than prepandemic ridership.”
The agency, formally known as the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority, is seeking public input on the
“When demand is reduced ... you need to make some changes on the price.” Seamus Murphy, S.F. Bay Ferry executive director
proposed changes at a March 16 virtual open house, ahead of an April 1 board vote. The changes would take effect in July if approved.
The proposed fare reductions range from 7% to 20% off of current fares, depending on the route. Following the slashing of routes as ridership dropped off with the pandemic’s economic fallout, the new proposed service changes include: resuming the Harbor Bay route and adding service on the Vallejo and Richmond routes. The agency is also pushing ahead to open a new terminal in Alameda in August that eliminates a stop and cuts travel by 20 minutes on the OaklandSan Francisco route. South San Francisco service should come back in October.
The Bay Ferry’s proposal for a less conservative approach could bring an edge over other public transit agencies still cutting or coming back slower as they struggle to recover from pandemicborne financial devastation. Muni is painstakingly trying to bring back service it slashed a year ago. BART is further reducing its schedule this month while staring down a growing budget shortfall and not expecting many riders back for years.
The ferry service estimates that its revenue loss this fiscal year will be about $37 million. Ridership is less than 10% of what it was before shelterinplace policies knocked out work commutes and other trips. Three of the usual five routes are running, with no weekend and sparse midday service.
Federal relief funds have kept the ferry, like other transit agencies, going. It received $23.7 million so far and expects $13.5 million this month, with more from the American Rescue Plan. Thie money enables the agency to drop fares and increase service — although sustainability remains uncertain.
“I don’t think transit is financially sustainable currently,” Murphy said. “When demand is reduced for your product, you need to make some changes on the price to try to incentivize demand. We’re going to do it for a oneyear period and see where things stand ... and have a longerterm fare strategy that has financial stability at its core.
“We recognize a new market for transit,” he said, “and we want to aggressively try to capture a share of that market that is likely to use the ferry to travel.”