Letter to the WETA Board of Directors

Paul Kamen here, Berkeley Waterfront Commission. 

I would like to direct your attention to my opinion piece published in the Berkeley Daily Planet on Friday March 27. 

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2009-03-26/article/32554?headline=Can-Buses-Save-the-Berkeley-Ferry-

or
 
http://tinyurl.com/ccofym

I really want to see the Berkeley ferry succeed. Really I do. But I fear it is going down in flames unless WETA acts quickly to address the parking issues. 

The WETA Board needs to direct Staff to meet with the stakeholders most affected by a terminal at Site B. 

As a Waterfront Commissioner and long-time participant in Berkeley politics, I believe I have my ear fairly close to the ground on this issue. What I am hearing is that Commissioners and Councilmembers are rapidly switching sides to oppose the ferry as now envisioned by WETA. 

This thing can still be saved - possibly - if WETA issues some kind of credible plan for limiting the parking load. True, John Sindzinski promises that parking controls will be addressed in the final EIR/EIS. But some of us have been pointing out these same problems and errors with the parking analysis before, during and during the Draft EIR/EIS production, all to no avail. Frankly, there is no confidence that the final will be any more adequate than the draft. And in any case, my understanding of CEQA requires that these issues be adequately addressed at the draft level, not in the final document. 

The substance of the problem is that, as now proposed, the ferry will create a parking crunch that will have very significant negative impacts on a wide range of waterfront users. 

This is not just about windsurfers and yacht owners. The uses that will be impacted include public-serving non-profit and educational organizations (Shorebird Nature Center), recreational facilities (Adventure Playground), tidelands access (Municipal Fishing Pier, kayak, windsurfer and small boat access), businesses (restaurants) and existing maritime uses (boat berthing, charter fish boats) and a number of organizations that straddle two or more of these categories.   
 
One way the ferry could become acceptable is if there is a two-tier ticket pricing scheme that charges market rate for ferry parking - and we need to define "market rate" in this context as a sufficiently high parking surcharge to keep the ferry parking demand down to something like 200 spaces so that negative impacts become insignificant. 
 
The parking surcharge would have to be embedded in the ferry ticket price, so that all parking areas remain unrestricted for shared use by non-ferry passengers. There simply is not enough parking at or near Site B to dedicate parking for exclusive use of the ferry. And time restrictions don't work here either - many of the private and public maritime, educational and commercial uses also require all-day parking. 
 
The revenue stream from a steep parking surcharge,  along with a good feeder bus system, could actually improve waterfront access for windsurfers, kayakers, park visitors, small boat sailors, and a lot of other user groups too. This has to be a win for everyone, not just for ferry passengers. 

One would hope that a project on this scale would put policies and mitigations up front; the various user groups should be able to look at the proposal and think "This looks good" instead of thinking "Yikes, this will ruin the waterfront for me."

Right now we are in the "Yikes" category. Without a serious change of course, a lot of effort will have been wasted and we might as well start looking at sites in Richmond. 

Can you direct Staff to meet with us Site B stakeholders so we can work things out before it makes us all look silly?  

Thank you.

Paul Kamen, Naval Architect, P.E.
1224 Campus Drive  Berkeley, California 94708
pk@well.com   http://www.BerkeleyWaterfront.org
510-540-7968   510-540-6324 (fax)  510-219-8106 (cell)