Last week, Gov. Newsom announced that he was cutting through the red tape to help Berkeley get a long-envisioned ferry terminal. It will come with new technology not yet available in the Bay Area, but not everybody is welcoming the news.
The old public pier sits locked and empty just as it has for the last 11 years. The area along Seawall Drive at the Berkeley Marina may one day be an embarkation point to get across to San Francisco. A new ferry terminal is planned for that shoreline and Joshua Mensah, who used to commute across the water to work, thought it wasn’t a bad idea.
“Honestly, anything that decreases pressure on the bridge, I’m for,” he said. “You know, get a few people to take the ferry rather than take the bridge, I think that would help everybody.”…