Just ferry me back to the good old days in the Bay Area

By Carl Heintze

Gov. Gray Davis has signed a law forming the San Francisco Bay Water Transit Authority. That means sometime in the not-too-distant future, we may see more ferries on San Francisco Bay, an event I can only applaud.

I'm old enough to remember when ferries--and not bridges--were the chief method of crossing the bay. There were ferries from Oakland to San Francisco, from Sausalito and San Rafael, from Vallejo and Richmond, and even across the Carquinez Straits.

There was a ferry across San Pablo Bay from Martinez to Benicia and across various points on the Sacramento River. There was even a boat, the Delta Queen, which ran from San Francisco to Sacramento and back. (It's now on the Mississippi River carrying tourists.)

There were hardly any of the bridges that now span all these routes. If you drove a car--something less than likely in those days--you used the ferry to get it to another shore. In short, the San Francisco Bay Area was a lot more like Puget Sound is today than a haven for bridges.

I'm even old enough to remember coming down to San Francisco on the ferry as they were building the Bay Bridge.

Boats did and still do, and cars go over it--far more automobiles than the bridge builders ever dreamed. And those of us who are still alive and able to remember riding the ferries have this nostalgic recollection of a gentler, easier, kinder time. On a ferry, it had to be, because no ferry crossed the bay as rapidly as an automobile can. Or rather, I should say as rapidly as a car is supposed to cross the Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate.

Traffic being what it is these days, it likely is going to be just as fast, if not faster, to get to San Francisco by ferry as it is by automobile. Or maybe even by BART. In those old and golden days, commuting by ferry was a way of life. Many East Bay residents took the red Key system trains to a ferry, walked to the boat, got on board, relaxed with a book until they got to the Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street (the hub of water transportation), and then walked to a Market Street streetcar to get where they were going.

Clubs of commuters formed. They visited every day on their way across the bay. Commuting had traditions. For instance, on a certain day marking the end of summer weather, commuting males sailed their straw hats into the bay as a symbol of the change of seasons.

Those were the days when "business" men wore hats in the out of doors, and straw hats were still in vogue. Somewhere during World War II, the straw hat, along with the ferries, went into decline and disappeared.

And so did leisure and commuting as a style of life. Commuters found themselves squeezed one per car into commuting auto traffic, listening to the radio and news of the newest auto accidents. There were no more commuter klatches because commuters were isolated by the auto.

Maybe now some of that will change. Because somehow taking a ferry is not the same as driving a car. Driving an automobile requires one's full-time attention, especially these days in today's traffic. It tends to up the blood pressure, heighten fatigue and roil tempers (road rage and all that, you know).

My recollection--although admittedly time has made it hazy--is that ferry commuters were pleasant people who seldom got angry with one another and enjoyed a certain daily wonder at crossing one of the loveliest stretches of water in the world. Commuting by ferry was relaxing instead of nerve bending.

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Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.

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