Taking The Ferry To Your Ride

Whoa folks, SF Bay Ferry announced that it is now running ferries between San Francisco and Richmond on weekends, not just weekdays! There are five runs each direction and you can get the schedule here. If you use Clippercard, a ticket costs $7 and it takes about 35 minutes to do the crossing. This comparable to BART: if you were to take it from Embarcadero to the Richmond station it would be about 36 minutes and cost $5.30. But then you’d have to be on BART and we all know how enjoyable it is to ride that rolling urban blight! Keep in mind that the weekend SF-Richmond ferry is an experiment and how long it lasts will depend on whether enough people use the run to make it profitable.

The first ferry from Richmond is at 9:30 am and gets to the Ferry Bldg. at 10:05. So you’d be able to do a ride in SF mid-morning although not the common 10 am rides you see on our ride calendar. That ferry turns around at 10:15 am and gets to Richmond at 10:50, still mid-morning.

If you live in SF or the Peninsula, you’re thinking, “Now why do I want to go to Richmond to ride??” Here’s the reason: the Richmond ferry dock is at the old Ford Motors assembly plant on the Bay. This is also the location of the Rosie the Riveter Museum as well as Assemble restaurant (yum!). It’s right on the Bay Trail and you can take it along the Bay to Emeryville and then all the way to the San Mateo Bridge for a good, long flat ride. You can also head north to Pt. Richmond along streets, where eventually you’ll be able to ride to Point Molate by bikeway. Don’t forget you can also exit the Bay Trail to get to the Alex Zuckerman Path on the Bay Bridge, which will take you to Treasure Island. You could make a great out-and-back ride from Richmond to TI and back. Or just cut it short and ride to West Oakland BART.

Weekend Richmond service joins the already existing service lines from SF to Vallejo, Alameda, Mare Island, and Jack London Square in Oakland, which already have weekend service.