Treasure Island ferry to sail soon
Long-awaited ferry service between downtown San Francisco and Treasure Island is finally looming on the horizon.
The California Public Utilities Commission is poised to vote on Feb. 10, to establish the fare for the rapid San Franciscoto-Treasure Island service, which will likely commence by the end of the month.
Service was supposed to start on Jan. 1, but has been delayed while waiting for the CPUC to sign off on the fare, which will reduce the price of an “unscheduled, prearranged service” from $20 to $5 a ride. Customers will also have the option of buying a $150-permonth unlimited ride.
Treasure Island Community Development will subsidize the ferry service until the Water Emergency Transportation Authority takes over. That is likely to happen in two to three years as more housing is completed on the 400-acre manmade island and demand for the commuter ferry rises.
Chris Meany, whose company, Wilson Meany, is the master developer of the 8,000-unit Treasure Island project, said the six- to eight-week delay has been disappointing but not a major setback.
“Unfortunately, what I thought could be done by the first of the year is going to be slightly delayed,” he said. “If it takes another few weeks, so be it. We have our ferry boat ready to go, and have built a magnificent breakwater and ferry terminal. It’s going to be a gamechanger.”
The ferry start date comes as the first new housing built in decades is set to open on both Treasure Island and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island. On Treasure Island, Chinatown Community Development Corp. and Swords to Plowshares are finishing up 105 deeply affordable homes, some of which will be set aside for formerly homeless veterans. On Yerba Buena Island, Wilson Meany is building 124 condos. Those will open in April.
Currently, about 600 residents live on Treasure Island — mostly in old military housing constructed when the island was a Navy base — although that number could hit 12,000 over the next decades as the island community takes shape. The next residential complex set to break ground, a 20-story, 248-unit apartment complex called Tidal House, will likely be under construction by the summer, Meany said.
“Fast, convenient ferry service has always been essential to integrate the Treasure Island community into the fabric of San Francisco,” said Treasure Island Development Authority Executive Director Bob Beck.
Beck said the fact that the developer is subsidizing the ferry means the service will be available “years earlier than originally envisioned.”
The 48-foot ferry, owned and operated by by Prop SF, will take about six minutes to cross the bay to Treasure Island and will run between 12 and 17 times a day.
San Francisco resident Shanan Delp, who lives in the Polk Gulch neighborhood, said he has been eagerly awaiting a day when he can take his two young kids by ferry to Treasure Island and then bike the rest of the way across the eastern span of the Bay Bridge to visit his mom in Berkeley.
He said the fact that the subsidized ferry will offer fast and convenient public transportation well before most of the housing is built could be a model for other stalled San Francisco “megadevelopments” like ParkMerced. Building the terminal and breakwater cost about $50 million.
“Maybe it will become the first chapter of a new model for density,” Delp said. “I’m hopeful that Treasure Island will become a new neighborhood of San Francisco that will draw people for concerts and food and recreation — as well as the new housing.”