Bay Area Ferry operators diverge in ridership regrowth strategies: How things are panning out.
Regrowing ridership following the pandemic remains a serious challenge for transit agencies in the Bay Area and across the country.
The San Francisco Bay Ferry, operated by the Water Emergency Transit Authority (WETA), has one of the highest transit ridership recoveries among services providing longer-distance regional trips. Between February and May 2023, the agency boasted ridership rates between 63-72% when compared to analogous months in 2019.
During the same timeframe BART ridership was bouncing between 39-42% of pre-pandemic level ridership and Caltrain’s around 25-32%. The SF Bay Ferry’s most direct counterpart is Golden Gate Ferry (GGF) which operates ferry service between San Francisco and Marin County. That service has posted ridership between 46-57% when compared to pre-pandemic levels. In fact, for the past two years GGF has experienced ridership recovery levels consistently between 10-25% lower than that of WETA.
What accounts for these differences? Service frequency and fare policies seem to contribute to these diverging paths.
Regrowth Strategies
Prior to the pandemic, the service patterns of both ferry operators catered to white-collar, 9-to-5 commuters heading into downtown San Francisco. Now, however, Bay Area Council survey data suggests 22% of Bay Area employees work in fully remote settings and office vacancy rates in downtown SF reached 30% in the first quarter of 2023. These changes have upended the traditional peak-hour regional transit service patterns offered by WETA and other Bay Area agencies like Caltrain.
WETA adjusted its service patterns with more frequent midday and late night trips to align service for diverse commutes and recreational trips.
Acknowledging the need to regrow ridership, WETA implemented service pattern and fare policy changes beginning in July 2021 as part of their Pandemic Recovery Program. This strategy focuses on generating new ridership by [1] smoothing service patterns by providing more midday and late night trips to serve workers in non-office settings, recreational travel, and other kinds of trips and [2] reducing fare to align with other transit options such as BART and AC Transit, amounting to fares cuts between 15-40% on its various routes.
For example, Clipper Card fares from Vallejo to SF decreased from $11.30 to $9 while Alameda/Oakland riders saw fares drop from $5.40 to $4.50. WETA reshuffled trips towards midday and late-night, providing more consistent service throughout the day by reducing the number of peak-hour trips. When these changes went into effect in July 2021, ridership jumped from 15% of pre-pandemic levels to 38% – up 23% in just one month.
Weekday WETA ridership remains below that of pre-pandemic levels despite gradual increases. However, weekend ridership is outpacing prior figures. Sourced from WETA’s June Board Meeting packet.
Aligning fares with other regional transit agencies and shifting service to better suit non-commute trips seem to be attracting new riders: 42% of SF Ferry riders had not used the service prior to 2020 and 18% of all riders stated affordability as a reason for choosing the ferry over other transit options (up from 7% in 2017). Additionally, weekend ridership is now higher than pre-pandemic levels.
The agency measured the success of these changes by comparing their ridership recovery to that of other regional transit entities, according to Mike Gouherty, Principal Planner at WETA. “Seeing the rate at which ridership came back kind of indicated to us that this is making a difference.”
Juxtapose this to Golden Gate Ferry which has restored less service, continued operating a relatively commute-focused schedule, and maintained a relatively expensive fare structure - has experienced a much slower recovery.
Rather than rapidly ramping up services to regrow ridership, Golden Gate Transit plans to gradually add back bus and ferry service as customers return, according to their most recent Short-Range Transit Plan. For reference, GGF’s Larkspur to San Francisco Route ran 21 daily weekday trips and 7 daily weekend trips prior to the pandemic in March 2020. Now the agency operates 14 weekday and 5 weekend trips per day.
Furthermore, GGF’s services are still more oriented around peak-commuter patterns than WETA – defined as between 6-8:30am and 4-6pm. For instance, 42% (6/14) of the trips on Golden Gate’s Larkspur to San Francisco route are during peak-hours. Compare this to WETA’s Oakland/Alameda to SF route which provides 26% of trips during peak-hours (5/19).
Number of weekday and weekend trips offered by GGF vs. WETA. You can find GGF’s schedule here and WETA’s here.
Ron Downing, Director of Planning at Golden Gate Transit, says there have always been calls to increase off-peak services, but the benefit offered to riders needs to justify the cost. According to Downing, increased non-commuter trips are unlikely to make up for the depressed commuter load as recreational trips don’t occur as consistently as commutes and travel is much more dispersed.
Golden Gate’s slow ridership recovery is certainly also affected by Marin County’s high rates of remote work. According to 2021 Census data, some 36% of Marin County workers are primarily remote, higher than that of counties served by WETA, primarily Alameda (35%), Contra Costa (28%), and Solano (13%). More people have returned to office since 2021, but the proportion of work from home likely remains higher in Marin.
In terms of pricing, Golden Gate Ferry fares are generally $1-2 more than that of its Golden Gate Buses. By contrast, WETA fares are comparable to BART and bus alternatives. Downing says its charges premium fares on ferries because their riders are more affluent (not as price sensitive) and ferries are faster than bus alternatives with higher operating costs. To assist low-income riders, Downing noted the agency increased Clipper START discounts from 20% to 50%.
We at Seamless believe changing travel patterns reinforce the need for Golden Gate to adapt, shifting service towards an approach focused on diversifying the pool of potential riders. Many North Bay residents continue to make trips to San Francisco for work and those who work remotely will still desire to trek downtown for activities such as entertainment, shopping, and socializing. Marin County recreation, particularly outdoor activities, appeals to residents around the Bay Area.
Golden Gate is in the middle of its Strategic Plan 2023, determining future financial and service pattern decisions. After an initial set of recommendations is brought to the agency’s board later this year, the public will have a chance to comment on the proposal. We will keep you up to date when the recommendations are released.
The US traditional model of “commuter service” – focusing some parts of the transit system heavily on affluent white-collar commuters – was an anomaly from an international perspective. The strategies taken by WETA are in line with international best practices for regional transit services, which is to provide more frequent, all-day and all-week service, well-coordinated with other parts of the transit system. In fact, countries that have more robust transit operations (such as France, Germany, and Spain) have reached or surpassed pre-pandemic levels of transit ridership.
Dwindling federal funds shape agency decisions
Transit agencies across the region face steep deficits once federal COVID relief dollars run out beginning as soon as next year for some operators.
Golden Gate Bridge, Highway & Transportation District (GGBHTD) is in a precarious financial squeeze and responding to its budget constraints with a more fiscally conservative approach. Absent any additional funding sources, GGBHTD anticipates a cumulative budget deficit of $423 million by FY 27/28.
The agency’s transit funding is heavily dependent upon Golden Gate Bridge tolls, representing 54% of total revenue in their proposed FY 23/24 Budget. With traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge at 85% of pre-pandemic levels, the agency is losing about $1 million in revenue per week, according to Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz, Director of Public Affairs for the agency.
Breakdown of Golden Gate Transit’s operating revenue, via the agency’s Proposed Budget FY 23/24.
The agency hopes that running reduced services will help them prolong one-time federal funds, which are expected to be depleted during FY 23/24. An additional $1.1 billion in transit operations funding negotiated into the recent state budget should give them a longer runway, but this is a temporary fix for a much larger problem facing transit agencies.
When WETA was designing their service level changes in 2020 and began implementing them in 2021, there was a notion that ridership would return to pre-pandemic levels at a quicker pace according to Gougherty.
“The hope that we had at the time is that if the [fiscal cliff] comes to be, that we’ve shown that we’re worth saving,” Gougherty stated. “By expediting the return of riders to the extent that we can – exercising the levers of control that we have – we can show that we are investing further. I think in general that’s the case that transit’s trying to make.”
Unlike GGF, WETA has access to state and local funding streams and the release of Regional Measure 3 bridge toll funding earlier this year further pushed out their expected fiscal cliff date.
Breakdown of WETA’s operating revenue, via their approved Budget FY 23/34.
Summary
Regrowing and expanding ridership will require agencies to serve the needs of riders first-and-foremost. WETA’s experiment overhauling its service patterns with more consistent service and aligning fares led to one of the strongest ridership recoveries in the Bay Area and other agencies such as BART are beginning to increase weekend and late-night train frequency too.
These steps will bring more riders into transit systems and the recent California state budget helps agencies keep operations afloat in the near-term, avoiding the imminent fiscal cliff. The Bay Area is planning a vital ballot measure in 2026 to provide transit with a stable source of operating funds.