San Francisco Ferry Building

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The San Francisco Ferry Building was built in 1898. During the early 1930's it was the second busiest transportation terminal in the world. Each day, some 250,000 people traveled through the Ferry Building to work or other destinations. Ferries made approximately 170 landings a day at this time, and the Ferry Building was served by trolley lines which left every 20 seconds for city destinations. Ferries to Oakland could carry 4,000 passengers, and were designed to incorporate restaurants, shoe shine parlors, and luxury surroundings, including mohair hangings, teak chairs, hammered copper lighting fixtures, and leather chairs in the ladies lounges.

Ferry transit has played a significant role in San Francisco Bay for almost 150 years. Transbay ferry service began in 1850, with the establishment of a route between San Francisco and the Oakland Estuary, served by the "Kangaroo". In 1852, Oakland granted what was to be the first Bay ferry franchise to a "reliable" operator of a public ferry. Over the last century and a half, up to thirty major cross-bay ferry lines have existed, serving 29 destinations. The great period of ferry transit reached its peak in the 1930's, when 60 million people crossed the bay annually, along with 6 million autos. Eclipsed by highway and bridge construction during the 1930's, a faster generation of ferries, including Vallejo's BayLink Ferries, are once more becoming valuable cross-bay connectors offering alternatives to congestion in some corridors, and as emergency alternatives to these same highways and bridges.