Free water shuttle between Alameda and Oakland starts service July 17

A new free water shuttle between Alameda Landing on the west end of the island of Alameda at the base of the tubes and Jack London Square in Oakland is slated to begin later this month.

The Oakland Alameda Water Shuttle will launch service on Wednesday, July 17, and run 37 trips a day. Each trip will take under 10 minutes. The 45-foot yellow pontoon vessel will have room for roughly 34 people and 14 bicycles and will be operated by San Francisco Bay Ferry.

The fact that the water shuttle will accommodate bicycles is a win for the cycling community, said Justin Hu-Nguyen, co-executive director of Mobility Justice in Oakland.

“There is huge lack of access on the western side of Alameda to get to Oakland,” Hu-Nguyen said. “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

There is no pedestrian or bicycle access in the Webster Tube, and only a 36-inch wide raised path through the Posey Tube — the primary arteries to and from the island.

Bicyclists say the trip can be scary, noisy, and that the black soot on the walls is evident of the poor air quality inside the underwater tunnel. Buses run between west Alameda and Jack London Square but the trip takes far longer than 10 minutes. The drive from west Alameda to Jack London Square is about 10 minutes, but longer during commute hours.

“We are thrilled to find a means to create a pleasant linkage for pedestrians and bicyclists between Oakland and Alameda’s west end,” said Mike O’Hara, the chair of the board of the Alameda Transportation Management Association in a statement. “This gap has existed for far too long, and we very much appreciate the commitment of our funding partners, the City of Alameda and SF Bay Ferry to make this shuttle come to life.”

The project has been in the works for about 15 years but finding funding was tough. The two-year pilot is funded with $1 million from the Alameda County Transportation Commission and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and more than $1.7 million from the Alameda Transportation Management Association, West Alameda Transportation Demand Management Association, Port of Oakland, Jack London Improvement District and the city of Alameda.

The new boat even has a name.

Sarah Henry, the communications and legislative affairs officer for Alameda, said the project team named the boat Woodstock “because the boat is yellow like Snoopy’s friend, Woodstock, but Woodstock also is one of the original three settlements formed in 1853 in Alameda, 171 years ago.”

The vessel will carry people across the Oakland Estuary on Wednesdays and Thursdays starting at 7:15 a.m. from Alameda, with the last trip of the day leaving Alameda at 7:25 p.m. On Fridays, the water shuttle leaves Alameda starting at 8:15 a.m., with the last boat out of Alameda at 8 p.m. The morning weekend schedule is the same as on Fridays but the last water shuttle of the day from Alameda departs at 8:05 p.m. There is no service on Mondays and Tuesdays.

“I’m delighted that the Woodstock will be run by SF Bay Ferry, which currently operates Transbay ferries connecting Oakland and Alameda to destinations in San Francisco and the Peninsula,’’ said  Alameda Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft in a statement.

The water shuttle will operate between public docks at Bohol Circle Immigrant Park, at the foot of 5th Street in Alameda and the foot of Broadway in Jack London Square. The Alameda dock is close to grocery stores and shopping at Alameda Landing, plus parks and new housing. The Oakland dock is in the heart of Jack London Square, a popular East Bay shopping and dining destination.

The water shuttle was purchased from a tour boat operator in New York and trucked cross-country to Svendsen’s Bay Marine boatyard in Richmond for initial maintenance and repairs. The U.S. Coast Guard will do a final inspection of the boat before it hits the water on July 17.