At the northern tip of the Port of Redwood City, Westpoint Slough meets Redwood Creek on a 9.2-acre parcel. Frontage Road and the rail tracks run along its east side, and the CEMEX terminal sits to its south. The Port's ferry terminal would go on this piece of industrial waterfront, and the draft Environmental Impact Report that came out in September 2026 shows how much more than a ferry landing is planned there.
The document runs 840 pages. Walking Redwood City pointed readers to the short project description on pages ES-3 through ES-10 and the impact summary on ES-27 through ES-29. Read together, those pages describe a site rezoned for a hotel, restaurants and offices, a first ferry service limited to weekday commute hours, and a construction schedule that never commits to an opening day. The public comment period closes at 5 p.m. on November 2, 2026, three weeks from today.
The rezoning goes beyond the ferry
The Port is asking to rezone the full 9.2 acres from General Industrial to General Commercial. It also wants the site taken out of the Seaport Plan's Port Priority Use Area, which currently limits what can be built there. The draft ties the change to the Port's 2020 Vision Plan and lists what the new zoning would allow:
- A three-story hotel of up to 180,000 square feet
- Restaurant space of up to 20,000 square feet
- Office space of up to 10,000 square feet
That development would sit on the northern side of the site along Westpoint Slough. Access would come from the existing loop road, and the hotel's ground floor would likely include parking.
The ferry pieces are smaller by comparison. The water side would have a floating dock about 45 by 135 feet with two berths, six guide piles, ADA boarding ramps and a gangway to a fixed pier. The pier would have a security gate, a canopy, lighting and shore power. On land, the plan calls for a 250-space parking lot, a transit and drop-off area, secure bike parking, a new access road, a separated Class I bikeway, accessible sidewalks and an extension of the Bay Trail. In the current design, the restroom is an interim portable unit.
So the commercial buildings are the big permanent investment in this plan, and the terminal is a modest piece next to them. That matters for the rest of the document, because the impacts the EIR can't fully fix come from the whole site, not only the boats.
The first boats run only at rush hour
San Francisco Bay Ferry, overseen by the regional Water Emergency Transportation Authority, would run the service. The draft studies two routes: one to the San Francisco Ferry Terminal and one to Oakland's Jack London Square. Each would use 320-passenger vessels with Tier 4 engines running on renewable diesel.
The trips are long. The EIR puts the San Francisco run at 61 minutes and the Oakland run at 71, not counting boarding and unloading. Part of that time is spent in Redwood Creek itself, where the boats slow from about 35 knots on the open Bay to 7 knots.
The EIR studies two levels of service. The one it proposes to start with is much thinner than the one its traffic analysis assumes:
| Initial service as proposed | Full buildout the EIR analyzes | |
|---|---|---|
| Days | Weekdays only | Weekdays, weekends, up to 15 special-event days for San Francisco |
| Trips | Three to four during each peak period | 18 weekday and 12 weekend daily services, plus a 20% cushion |
| Hours | About 6 to 10:30 a.m. and 4 to 9:30 p.m. | All day, with more frequent peak trips |
| Routes | San Francisco and/or Oakland | Both |
"Actual service would depend on demand and would be subject to San Francisco Bay Ferry's standard operating practices. The full buildout service would be phased-in over time to match demand and available operating resources."
It also says either the San Francisco or the Oakland route could be put off, and that midday and weekend trips may come only after commute service is running. WETA's own standard for new routes is at least nine peak-direction weekday trips, and the draft says Redwood City would reach that "as demand, operating resources, and funding allow." The proposed start of three to four trips each peak is below that standard. A Saturday ferry to the city is part of what the EIR analyzes, not part of what would launch on day one.
The ridership figures come from the Port's 2022 business plan, adjusted for post-pandemic travel and slower boat speeds. For its 2023 baseline, the EIR projects an average of 830 weekday riders on the San Francisco route and 640 on the Oakland route. For 2040, the projections are 1,910 and 1,780. On weekends, the San Francisco route is projected at 730 riders in the baseline year and 1,680 in 2040.
The plan expects the existing Seaport Center Caltrain shuttle to stop at the terminal and says employer shuttles could connect too. The 2022 business plan also floated longer shuttle hours and, later, a community shuttle. Those are planning ideas, not promised service.
A construction schedule but no opening day
The draft estimates construction would start in 2027 and take about four years, in three phases:
- Raise the 9.2-acre site to 17 feet NAVD, which takes seven to nine months.
- Build the ferry terminal, the parking lot and the Bay Trail extension, widen Seaport Boulevard, relocate the rail track and replace the maintenance building. This phase takes about 15 months.
- Build the visitor-serving uses, starting right after the terminal is finished and lasting about 24 months.
By that sequence, terminal work would finish about 22 to 24 months after groundbreaking. The hotel and restaurant phase would take up the remaining two years. The draft does not say when the first boat would leave. Its air-quality analysis assumes "full operation in 2028," but that is a year chosen for modeling, not a launch date.
The schedule has slipped before. The Port's 2022 business plan expected Redwood City service to begin in 2025.
The money is not fully in place either. The 2022 plan estimated capital costs at $102.95 million: $80 million for vessels, $19.8 million for terminal construction, $3 million for environmental review and engineering, and $150,000 for a shuttle. In January 2025, Redwood City Pulse reported $15 million from the county transportation authority and a $5 million state earmark, against a total estimate of about $100 million. The same story said the project's inclusion in the regional plan made it eligible to compete for federal ferry grants. That is eligibility, not an award. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission's August 12, 2026 RM3 tracker lists a $300 million WETA Ferry Enhancement Program. None of its named allocations is for a Redwood City terminal.
What the draft can't fully mitigate
The EIR finds two impacts that would remain significant even after mitigation. The first is nitrogen oxide emissions from running the ferry and the visitor-serving buildings, for which the draft says no feasible mobile-source mitigation exists. The second is the possible destruction of fossil resources during pile driving, which monitoring can't fully prevent. The draft says mitigation would bring the other significant impacts below the threshold of concern. Those include effects on sensitive species, habitat and wildlife movement, plus the risk of a hazardous-material release.
The alternatives section ties back to the rezoning. Alternative 3 builds less on the site, and the EIR names it the environmentally superior option among the project alternatives. It would keep emissions under the air-quality threshold that the full project exceeds. The pile-driving impact on fossils would remain. In other words, the main air-quality issue depends on how much commercial development goes in next to the dock.
Comments from the 2024 scoping phase are summarized in the draft too. Topics included diesel engines versus zero-emission vessels, marine mammals and nesting birds, pile driving, sea-level rise and flooding, ferry wakes affecting recreational boaters, the ridership forecasts, and whether the visitor-serving development should get its own separate review.
How to comment before November 2
The comment period opened September 17 and closes at 5 p.m. on Monday, November 2. You can send written comments to Port project manager Don Snaman at [email protected], or by mail to 675 Seaport Boulevard, Redwood City, CA 94063. The in-person open house at the Port offices was held October 7, so email and mail are the remaining options. The San Mateo Daily Journal's coverage gives the same deadline and trip times.
Many people saw this waterfront up close just days before the open house. At PortFest on October 3, for the first time, boat-tour guests could get off at the Marine Science Institute and catch a later tour back. The ferry draft plans for regular public use of the same stretch of creek, and the comment period is the formal chance to weigh in on the dock and on the rezoning.
Lana Morin Pierce tracks Port and waterfront plans like this one because they shape how Redwood City works day to day. If you'd like to talk through how the ferry timeline fits your own plans, Lana Morin Pierce is glad to go through the details with you. Book a Consultation.
