Public Comment

In response to the March 23 letter from Shirley Douglas of the Water Transit Authority: It is very encouraging to read that the two new 25-knot 149-passenger ferries on order for the Water Transit Authority (at $8 million each) are not intended for the Berkeley/Albany route. These vessels are unnecessarily fast, high-powered and expensive for the 5.6 mile distance from the Berkeley Marina to San Francisco. It is also good to learn that WTA has reversed its early decision to comply with the IMO High Speed code, and instead is going to stay with the much more appropriate 46 CFR Subchapter T regulations. 

The underlying problem that remains, however, is that the consultants evaluating the four candidate terminal sites are only looking at half of the system: Optimal site selection is intimately tied to vessel design—or at least it should be. 

WTA claims that the Berkeley Ferry has not been designed, and that the two ferries on order are spares. Yet when asked at the scoping session how deep the channel would need to be, the reply was definite: The ferry will draw six feet if water. If the Berkeley ferry has not been designed yet, how do they know the draft? 

This is more than a fine point. The “spare” catamaran ferries may draw six feet, but if anyone is to make a rational decision about terminal location in areas surrounded by shallow water, then vessel draft must be considered as one of the critical variables. A terminal site that requires transiting shallow water dictates different design priorities. For example, a shallow-bottom monohull propelled by surface-piercing propellers or waterjets might only need three feet of water. It could be built for no more expense, and probably significantly less, than the catamarans now on order. The cost of dredging and maintaining a channel would be dramatically reduced and an otherwise infeasible site might become the optimal choice. 

But if this design parameter is arbitrarily fixed early in the process, then the terminal siting decision faces an unnecessary constraint and the wrong site might be chosen for the wrong reasons. 

This is an example of the penalty we pay for failure to use the “whole systems” approach to the new ferry service. 

Design speed is another important variable. The 25-knot boats have far more power and speed than needed for the short Berkeley run, apparently because they are designed to serve longer and less economically viable ferry routes in other parts of the Bay. 

We also have to ask why WTA believes it is necessary to add substantial cost, weight and complexity in order to exceed the new EPA emissions standards by 85%. The Bay is traversed daily by many thousands of marine horsepower with no emissions controls at all. It would seem to be a much more cost-effective public policy to begin to bring all the existing fish boats and commercial vessels into compliance with current EPA standards, rather than spend public money to exceed these standards by such a wide margin on only two new vessels. 

Again, designing for a slower speed appropriate for the shorter route is a better way to build a cleaner ferry. But the consultants working on the site selection study can’t put the proper value on minimizing the route distance unless they know the true cost of speed in terms of dollars, efficiency and emissions. If we arbitrarily insist on “85 percent better than required” instead of actually looking at the amount of pollution produced as a function of route length and speed, then part of the cost of speed is hidden and we are likely to end up with the wrong terminal location for the wrong reasons, and maybe even more pollution than if speed and power had been allowed as a site selection variable. 

In defense of WTA, it has to be recognized that public transportation agencies always have and always will have a very hard time doing things right. Perhaps we are expecting too much, considering the many unseen constraints they are under. Given this reality, what this all points to is a strong incentive to minimize risk. The new terminal should be sited where it costs the least, makes the most use of existing infrastructure and requires the lowest operating subsidy. 

The Doubletree Hotel location inside the Marina, where we already have a ferry terminal serving several large Hornblower vessels, is the only candidate site that meets these requirements. This is an inevitable result of WTA’s cart-before-the-horse ferry acquisition strategy; All we know for certain about the new ferry service is that WTA is likely to get some of it wrong. 

If we are serious about making the ferry a permanent amenity, then we have to keep the initial investment in the terminal small enough so that we can fix the mistakes after we find out the hard way what they are. 

Paul Kamen is a naval architect who serves on the Berkeley Waterfront Commission.