Two possible locations for a new Berkeley Ferry terminal.

Option One is immediately to the south of the Doubletree Hotel. One of the Hornblower berths is displaced, but there is ample room to shift the Hornblower docks to the north to accommodate their existing Berkeley-based fleet, especially since some of the Hornblower boats are essentially stationary "food prep" vessels that do not need easy access in and out of their berths.

In this plan, no existing marina berths are affected.

A detailed parking analysis for the Doubletree location is available at www.BerkeleyWaterfront.org/Ferry/

Option Two replaces marina docks A and B, near the launching ramp on the north side of the harbor, with the ferry terminal. C-dock would be connected to the D and E-dock gangway. Note that the current replacement plans for docks A-E call for replacing the five existing docks with four. Under this plan this would be reduced to three new docks, but the size of berths on C-dock could be significantly increased. Loss of berthing revenue needs to be balanced against the cost of debt service for the dock replacement. There would probably be a short-term gain but a long-term loss to the marina fund.

Parking under this scenario would be primarily in the existing A-E lot, which has unused capacity on weekdays.

Under both options there is sufficient existing parking to support the initial level of ferry service. However a successful service would eventually put some expansion pressure on the weekday parking resource.

Weekend parking for Cesar Chavez Park is already under serious pressure. This suggests efficient shared use of new parking that would improve access for park visitors on weekends and accommodate ferry passengers during the week.

The ferry shown is the 330-passenger Peralta, which is considerably larger than the ferries contemplated for this route. The berth configuration is designed for both side-tie berthing and the more efficient bow-in berthing which might be incorporated into future ferry designs.

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