12 ms·

Facebook launches employee ferry service from SF

51 points by jfb 13y ago

w1ntermute 13y ago
I wonder what kind of impact this will have on waterfront real estate.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Man, oceanfront property might get expensive
  - fennecfoxen 13y ago
    Oceanfront property in and immediately around San Francisco is not the expensive property: it's far away from downtown and way too foggy! Also, as long as we're talking ferries, you don't send your ferry all the way around the peninsula, through the Golden Gate, and out the other side to a non-existent dock to pick people up from some of the lower population-density / lowest computer-programmer density zones of San Francisco. If anything, you send the people a bus that point, and even with traffic it's a better plan. Now. Bayfront property, on the other hand, is different.
cylinder 13y ago
Odd, I don't live in Northern California but I was just wondering last week why these companies (sad the public sector doesn't handle it) don't use ferries instead of buses. Ferries are effectively used in other large cities, NYC, Sydney, Seattle, to name a few.
- mmanfrin 13y ago
  We have ferries, but the problem is that they tend to go to places that are already serviced by BART, which is much more convenient (if less enjoyable), or dock from places that arent near BART (Alameda). As I understand it, the Ferry from Sausalito to SF is regularly used, because BART doesn't visit the north. Why there is no South Bay to East or SF I'm not sure, maybe because up until recently there wasn't enough interregional traffic where BART/Caltrain was not already there.
- rdl 13y ago
  There are actually lots of ferries in SFBA, just not on silly routes like SF to RWC. They're funded using the justification of "water emergency transportation" (i.e. post earthquake or something else which takes out a bridge), but basically are just to keep wealthy and prominent voters in a few places happy. Essentially they're heavily subsidized (true operating costs are around $50-150/ride; price is about $8; ridership levels are very low on many routes). http://sanfranciscobayferry.com/ http://sanfranciscobayferry.com/ In Seattle it makes sense because it's between islands, some of which have no bridge access. In the Bay Area, there are bridges directly on many routes, and aside from a couple of tourist places, everywhere the ferries run is at worst two bridges or two segments of ground travel away. (In Seattle, the transit authority is actually fairly competent too, by comparison)
  - micro_cam 13y ago
    Actually the biggest commuter ferry routes in the Seattle area can be drove round. Ie Kingston and Bremerton are on a Peninsula and Bainbridge Island is connected via the (short) agate pass bridge. The idea of more bridges has been brought up but met with strong "not in my backyard" resistance. A short bridge from Bremerton to Bainbridge would make a lot of sense (and allow two ferry routes to be combined) but the wealthy Bainbridge Islanders are against being connected to the less well off Bremerton.
    - rdl 13y ago
      Ah, that makes sense. I looked at Whidbey Island before (and visited; it's nice!), but didn't realize you could actually drive there (even if it's super out of the way).
  - nkurz 13y ago
    Your numbers struck me as surprisingly high. It seems hard to believe that running a ferry across the bay with 100 passengers can cost $10,000. But there are definitely articles backing you up: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/South-San-Francisco-ferry-loaded-with-subsidies-3659513.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/South-San-... While basically matching your numbers for the new routes, the article also mentions that the effective subsidy for the older routes is about $15 per ride. I guess part of the question is how to distinguish "start up costs" from "operating costs".
- Johnie 13y ago
  Unlike NYC, SF Bay environment protection advocates are pretty powerful. They don't want the bay shores to be built up and developed. See Bay Keepers: http://baykeeper.org/blog/take-action-help-stop-unwise-development-along-south-bay-shore http://baykeeper.org/blog/take-action-help-stop-unwise-devel...
  - yid 13y ago
    If you've ever hiked up the trails at Lands End in SF and looked out at the Pacific towards Marin, you'll see an excellent example of what about this area makes even the most apathetic person a conservationist.
- ndespres 13y ago
  I commute from the Jersey shore to NYC daily by ferry, and while it is often the most relaxing part of my day (stormy days being the exception) and more convenient than the alternatives available to me, I don't believe rapid transit by water is inexpensive or environmentally friendly.
- _delirium 13y ago
  On a pure transportation-time basis, ferries are nearly useless in the SFBA, because they take longer than just running a bus would.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    That really depends on the route and traffic. So long as your endpoints are close to terminals, they can be faster (and much more reliable) than ground transport. There's very, very, very rarely a major traffic tie-up on the water. The worst case might be an accident at one of the terminals or a specific boat being disabled.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    I did see a proposal for a hovercraft that was pretty effective, it got around the "how do I get on it" issue by having it come inland a bit in the south bay. But you are essentially correct that from a time of commute standpoint ferries almost always lose if any other powered transportation is available.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Transfers. Unless your endpoints are directly at quayside, a ferry boat service is going to involve at least one, and quite possibly two transfer points at either terminal. Commuter buses, by contrast, are particularly efficient as they allow passengers to be collected close to their homes, often within feet, or at most a few blocks (in a dense urban setting, as is the case with the San Francisco executive shuttles). Where there's a reasonably direct land route between locations (note that this isn't the case for, say, a Bainbridge Island - Seattle commute, buses are often faster than ferries. Fuel cost is another factor -- on a per-passenger basis, boats use a considerable amount of fuel, I believe bus service is generally more efficient (low vehicle:passenger weight ratio). On the positive side: boats generally don't suffer from congestion issues (though weather and fog may slow them down), and often afford more space per passenger with a greater ability to work en route, as well as the option to get out in the fresh air (though a brisk 20-50 kt breeze is rather more bracing than you might be prepared for -- the after-decks are generally quite pleasant though). As for public-sector ferry services, there are numerous ferry services on the San Francisco Bay, many resurrected following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake which took out a major bridge crossing (the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge), including service between San Francisco and Sausalito, Tiburon, Larkspur, Vallejo, Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda. I've heard rumors of a public Redwood City service but don't believe it's been restarted. Oddly, there seems to be no good one-stop shopping site for information on ferry transit, including http://511.org http://511.org which is otherwise a transit / traffic information hub. Wikipedia seems to have one of the better compendia, though I'm not sure it's complete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferries_of_San_Francisco_Bay#Ferries_today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferries_of_San_Francisco_Bay#F...
- zaius 13y ago
  One big problem is that the SF bay is shallow and there's a lot of silt built up in the areas where startups would want stops.
- BashiBazouk 13y ago
  Geography. The north bay has a long history of ferries. This is because there is lots of development close to the water. The north bay is also an outlet for the Sacramento River so the water is deep and some of the surrounding land quite picturesque. The south bay is a huge network of sloughs that have been turned in to major industrial salt production historically, though this is waning. Beyond salt, there has been very little water side development up in till recently. Most of the places you would want to go in the south bay are at least a mile from the water. A ferry to Facebook actually works as they took over the old Sun campus which is one of the rare tech centers that jut out in to the bay. There are a few, but nothing compared to inland...
  - ulfw 13y ago
    And yet the ferry doesn't go to Menlo Park. It ends in RWC.
suyash 13y ago
How about opening an office in San Francisco instead? I know Google already has one but probably other companies from peninsula/south bay need to start expanding their presence in SF as well.
- fourstar 13y ago
  Because real estate is expensive and impacted in SF.
- bluthru 13y ago
  I don't understand, wouldn't this be a good investment opportunity with San Francisco growing? Facebook could build its own tower and lease out space for condos, apartments, offices, ground floor commercial, etc. I'm really kinda bummed they're building a huge sprawling building. I think Amazon is being the best citizen in this regard.
  - fiatmoney 13y ago
    To a close approximation, San Francisco won't let anyone build anything.
    - thrownaway2424 13y ago
      Been here lately? There are over five million square feet of commercial space actively underconstruction, 20000 housing units actively under construction, and 50000 housing units permitted and in some stage of development planning.
      - rdl 13y ago
        There's still the problem that most of the construction within SF is in areas where "people don't want to live", at least not "trendy" startup people. Generally 20something tech people want to live in the Mission and work in SOMA. Transit within SF is kind of defective, even for that pattern. HP/Bayview would be the natural place to fix, and the third street rail/mission bay/etc. was supposed to open that up, but Bayview still appears to be the ghetto. Fixing Bayview will bring even more cries of racism/gentrification/etc. than other parts of the city, due to demographics; plus much of the available space in HP is either nuclear waste dump or dirty industrial, so it's expensive to remediate.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kunle 13y ago
This won't be a popular thing to say, but both Facebook and Google (and many others) are now at the scale where they can really effectively impact policy. They already do this at the national level (Eg immigration/SOPA) - and focusing on changing housing policy at the local level (to encourage more density & units) would go a long way to alleviate these issues. This isn't for charity - the housing shortage isn't particularly pleasant for their employees either, as it makes everything scarcer/more expensive (parking, grocery, other cost of living). Edit: A couple of references on housing: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-San-Francisco-creates-its-own-housing-crisis-5139869.php#src=fb http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-San-Fran...
- 727374 13y ago
  What does housing have to do with this? It's not like FB employees live in SF for the cheap housing.
  - fancyketchup 13y ago
    There have recently been rumblings that Google and FB are 'bad' because they hire people who move to SF. These employees increase demand for housing in SF, which tends to price out people who have been living there longer. Some people feel this is undesirable, and have made their feelings known by, e.g., protesting Google buses. Increasing the supply of housing (by changing zoning rules) would tend to reduce the market rate for housing in SF.
    - narrator 13y ago
      Unfortunately San Francisco is not impressed by billionaires.
    - king_jester 13y ago
      > Increasing the supply of housing (by changing zoning rules) would tend to reduce the market rate for housing in SF. This is not necessarily true. Housing prices don't fall uniformly in an area as more units become available, so existing residents may still be displaced. Also, more people may move from elsewhere to fill the vacancies provided by new units, driving higher prices for new units and making an area unaffordable for existing residents.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nctalaviya 13y ago
Looking something from Facebook. Good

51 points by jfb 13y ago

w1ntermute 13y ago

I wonder what kind of impact this will have on waterfront real estate.

sliverstorm 13y ago
Man, oceanfront property might get expensive
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  Oceanfront property in and immediately around San Francisco is not the expensive property: it's far away from downtown and way too foggy! Also, as long as we're talking ferries, you don't send your ferry all the way around the peninsula, through the Golden Gate, and out the other side to a non-existent dock to pick people up from some of the lower population-density / lowest computer-programmer density zones of San Francisco. If anything, you send the people a bus that point, and even with traffic it's a better plan. Now. Bayfront property, on the other hand, is different.

cylinder 13y ago

Odd, I don't live in Northern California but I was just wondering last week why these companies (sad the public sector doesn't handle it) don't use ferries instead of buses. Ferries are effectively used in other large cities, NYC, Sydney, Seattle, to name a few.

mmanfrin 13y ago
We have ferries, but the problem is that they tend to go to places that are already serviced by BART, which is much more convenient (if less enjoyable), or dock from places that arent near BART (Alameda). As I understand it, the Ferry from Sausalito to SF is regularly used, because BART doesn't visit the north. Why there is no South Bay to East or SF I'm not sure, maybe because up until recently there wasn't enough interregional traffic where BART/Caltrain was not already there.
rdl 13y ago
There are actually lots of ferries in SFBA, just not on silly routes like SF to RWC. They're funded using the justification of "water emergency transportation" (i.e. post earthquake or something else which takes out a bridge), but basically are just to keep wealthy and prominent voters in a few places happy. Essentially they're heavily subsidized (true operating costs are around $50-150/ride; price is about $8; ridership levels are very low on many routes). http://sanfranciscobayferry.com/ http://sanfranciscobayferry.com/ In Seattle it makes sense because it's between islands, some of which have no bridge access. In the Bay Area, there are bridges directly on many routes, and aside from a couple of tourist places, everywhere the ferries run is at worst two bridges or two segments of ground travel away. (In Seattle, the transit authority is actually fairly competent too, by comparison)
- micro_cam 13y ago
  Actually the biggest commuter ferry routes in the Seattle area can be drove round. Ie Kingston and Bremerton are on a Peninsula and Bainbridge Island is connected via the (short) agate pass bridge. The idea of more bridges has been brought up but met with strong "not in my backyard" resistance. A short bridge from Bremerton to Bainbridge would make a lot of sense (and allow two ferry routes to be combined) but the wealthy Bainbridge Islanders are against being connected to the less well off Bremerton.
  - rdl 13y ago
    Ah, that makes sense. I looked at Whidbey Island before (and visited; it's nice!), but didn't realize you could actually drive there (even if it's super out of the way).
- nkurz 13y ago
  Your numbers struck me as surprisingly high. It seems hard to believe that running a ferry across the bay with 100 passengers can cost $10,000. But there are definitely articles backing you up: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/South-San-Francisco-ferry-loaded-with-subsidies-3659513.php http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/South-San-... While basically matching your numbers for the new routes, the article also mentions that the effective subsidy for the older routes is about $15 per ride. I guess part of the question is how to distinguish "start up costs" from "operating costs".
Johnie 13y ago
Unlike NYC, SF Bay environment protection advocates are pretty powerful. They don't want the bay shores to be built up and developed. See Bay Keepers: http://baykeeper.org/blog/take-action-help-stop-unwise-development-along-south-bay-shore http://baykeeper.org/blog/take-action-help-stop-unwise-devel...
- yid 13y ago
  If you've ever hiked up the trails at Lands End in SF and looked out at the Pacific towards Marin, you'll see an excellent example of what about this area makes even the most apathetic person a conservationist.
ndespres 13y ago
I commute from the Jersey shore to NYC daily by ferry, and while it is often the most relaxing part of my day (stormy days being the exception) and more convenient than the alternatives available to me, I don't believe rapid transit by water is inexpensive or environmentally friendly.
_delirium 13y ago
On a pure transportation-time basis, ferries are nearly useless in the SFBA, because they take longer than just running a bus would.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  That really depends on the route and traffic. So long as your endpoints are close to terminals, they can be faster (and much more reliable) than ground transport. There's very, very, very rarely a major traffic tie-up on the water. The worst case might be an accident at one of the terminals or a specific boat being disabled.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  I did see a proposal for a hovercraft that was pretty effective, it got around the "how do I get on it" issue by having it come inland a bit in the south bay. But you are essentially correct that from a time of commute standpoint ferries almost always lose if any other powered transportation is available.
dredmorbius 13y ago
Transfers. Unless your endpoints are directly at quayside, a ferry boat service is going to involve at least one, and quite possibly two transfer points at either terminal. Commuter buses, by contrast, are particularly efficient as they allow passengers to be collected close to their homes, often within feet, or at most a few blocks (in a dense urban setting, as is the case with the San Francisco executive shuttles). Where there's a reasonably direct land route between locations (note that this isn't the case for, say, a Bainbridge Island - Seattle commute, buses are often faster than ferries. Fuel cost is another factor -- on a per-passenger basis, boats use a considerable amount of fuel, I believe bus service is generally more efficient (low vehicle:passenger weight ratio). On the positive side: boats generally don't suffer from congestion issues (though weather and fog may slow them down), and often afford more space per passenger with a greater ability to work en route, as well as the option to get out in the fresh air (though a brisk 20-50 kt breeze is rather more bracing than you might be prepared for -- the after-decks are generally quite pleasant though). As for public-sector ferry services, there are numerous ferry services on the San Francisco Bay, many resurrected following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake which took out a major bridge crossing (the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge), including service between San Francisco and Sausalito, Tiburon, Larkspur, Vallejo, Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda. I've heard rumors of a public Redwood City service but don't believe it's been restarted. Oddly, there seems to be no good one-stop shopping site for information on ferry transit, including http://511.org http://511.org which is otherwise a transit / traffic information hub. Wikipedia seems to have one of the better compendia, though I'm not sure it's complete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferries_of_San_Francisco_Bay#Ferries_today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferries_of_San_Francisco_Bay#F...
zaius 13y ago
One big problem is that the SF bay is shallow and there's a lot of silt built up in the areas where startups would want stops.
BashiBazouk 13y ago
Geography. The north bay has a long history of ferries. This is because there is lots of development close to the water. The north bay is also an outlet for the Sacramento River so the water is deep and some of the surrounding land quite picturesque. The south bay is a huge network of sloughs that have been turned in to major industrial salt production historically, though this is waning. Beyond salt, there has been very little water side development up in till recently. Most of the places you would want to go in the south bay are at least a mile from the water. A ferry to Facebook actually works as they took over the old Sun campus which is one of the rare tech centers that jut out in to the bay. There are a few, but nothing compared to inland...
- ulfw 13y ago
  And yet the ferry doesn't go to Menlo Park. It ends in RWC.

suyash 13y ago

How about opening an office in San Francisco instead? I know Google already has one but probably other companies from peninsula/south bay need to start expanding their presence in SF as well.

fourstar 13y ago
Because real estate is expensive and impacted in SF.
bluthru 13y ago
I don't understand, wouldn't this be a good investment opportunity with San Francisco growing? Facebook could build its own tower and lease out space for condos, apartments, offices, ground floor commercial, etc. I'm really kinda bummed they're building a huge sprawling building. I think Amazon is being the best citizen in this regard.
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  To a close approximation, San Francisco won't let anyone build anything.
  - thrownaway2424 13y ago
    Been here lately? There are over five million square feet of commercial space actively underconstruction, 20000 housing units actively under construction, and 50000 housing units permitted and in some stage of development planning.
    - rdl 13y ago
      There's still the problem that most of the construction within SF is in areas where "people don't want to live", at least not "trendy" startup people. Generally 20something tech people want to live in the Mission and work in SOMA. Transit within SF is kind of defective, even for that pattern. HP/Bayview would be the natural place to fix, and the third street rail/mission bay/etc. was supposed to open that up, but Bayview still appears to be the ghetto. Fixing Bayview will bring even more cries of racism/gentrification/etc. than other parts of the city, due to demographics; plus much of the available space in HP is either nuclear waste dump or dirty industrial, so it's expensive to remediate.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

kunle 13y ago

This won't be a popular thing to say, but both Facebook and Google (and many others) are now at the scale where they can really effectively impact policy. They already do this at the national level (Eg immigration/SOPA) - and focusing on changing housing policy at the local level (to encourage more density & units) would go a long way to alleviate these issues. This isn't for charity - the housing shortage isn't particularly pleasant for their employees either, as it makes everything scarcer/more expensive (parking, grocery, other cost of living). Edit: A couple of references on housing: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-San-Francisco-creates-its-own-housing-crisis-5139869.php#src=fb http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/How-San-Fran...

727374 13y ago
What does housing have to do with this? It's not like FB employees live in SF for the cheap housing.
- fancyketchup 13y ago
  There have recently been rumblings that Google and FB are 'bad' because they hire people who move to SF. These employees increase demand for housing in SF, which tends to price out people who have been living there longer. Some people feel this is undesirable, and have made their feelings known by, e.g., protesting Google buses. Increasing the supply of housing (by changing zoning rules) would tend to reduce the market rate for housing in SF.
  - narrator 13y ago
    Unfortunately San Francisco is not impressed by billionaires.
  - king_jester 13y ago
    > Increasing the supply of housing (by changing zoning rules) would tend to reduce the market rate for housing in SF. This is not necessarily true. Housing prices don't fall uniformly in an area as more units become available, so existing residents may still be displaced. Also, more people may move from elsewhere to fill the vacancies provided by new units, driving higher prices for new units and making an area unaffordable for existing residents.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nctalaviya 13y ago

Looking something from Facebook. Good