The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide (1.6 km) strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula—to Marin County, carrying both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. It also carries pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and is designated as part of U.S. Bicycle Route 95. Recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the Wonders of the Modern World, the bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco and California.
The Key System was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over 66 miles (106 km) of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System's territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service.
The Richmond–San Rafael Bridge is the northernmost of the east–west crossings of California's San Francisco Bay, carrying Interstate 580 from Richmond on the east to San Rafael on the west. It opened in 1956, replacing ferry service by the Richmond–San Rafael Ferry Company, and was officially renamed in 1981 to honor California State Senator John F. McCarthy, who championed the bridge's creation.
Golden Gate Transit (GGT) is a public transportation system serving the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in California, United States. It primarily serves Marin County, Sonoma County, and San Francisco, and also provides limited service to Contra Costa County. In 2022, Golden Gate Transit had a ridership of 1,205,100, or about 4,600 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2023.
The North Bay is a subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States. The largest city is Santa Rosa, which is the fifth-largest city in the Bay Area. It is the location of the Napa and Sonoma wine regions, and is the least populous and least urbanized part of the Bay Area. It consists of Marin, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.
The San Francisco Ferry Building is a terminal for ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay, a food hall and an office building. It is located on The Embarcadero in San Francisco, California and is served by Golden Gate Ferry and San Francisco Bay Ferry routes.
The Northwestern Pacific Railroad is a 271-mile (436 km) mainline railroad from the ferry connections in Sausalito north to Eureka with a connection to the national railroad system at Schellville. The railroad has gone through a history of different ownership and operators but has maintained a generic name of reference as The Northwestern Pacific Railroad, despite no longer being officially named that. Currently, only a 62-mile (100 km) stretch of mainline from Larkspur to the Sonoma County Airport in Windsor and east to Schellville on the “south end” is operated by Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART), which operates both commuter and freight trains with plans for future extension north to Cloverdale. The “north end” from Willits to Eureka is currently out of service, but saved by 2018 legislation to be converted into the Great Redwood Trail.
The Berkeley Pier is in Berkeley, California. When constructed in 1926, the pier extended 3.5 miles (5.6 km) into San Francisco Bay from the end of University Avenue. Due to extensive filling of the bay and the creation of the Berkeley Marina, it presently extends only 2.5 miles (4.0 km). Since 1937, only the first 3,000 feet (910 m) were maintained and open to the public until July 2015, when public access was closed due to safety concerns.
People in the San Francisco Bay Area rely on a complex multimodal transportation infrastructure consisting of roads, bridges, highways, rail, tunnels, airports, seaports, and bike and pedestrian paths. The development, maintenance, and operation of these different modes of transportation are overseen by various agencies, including the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Association of Bay Area Governments, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. These and other organizations collectively manage several interstate highways and state routes, eight passenger rail networks, eight trans-bay bridges, transbay ferry service, local and transbay bus service, three international airports, and an extensive network of roads, tunnels, and bike paths.
The Hyde Street Pier, at 2905 Hyde Street, is a historic ferry pier located on the northern waterfront of San Francisco in the U.S. state of California.
The North Pacific Coast Railroad (NPC) was a common carrier 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge steam railroad begun in 1874 and sold in 1902 to new owners who renamed it the North Shore Railroad (California) (NSR) and which rebuilt the southern section into a standard-gauge electric railway.
San Francisco Bay in California has been served by ferries of all types for over 150 years. John Reed established a sailboat ferry service in 1826. Although the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge led to the decline in the importance of most ferries, some are still in use today for both commuters and tourists.
Martinez station is an Amtrak passenger train station in Martinez, California, United States. Located at the west end of downtown Martinez, the station has one side platform and one island platform, which serve three of the four tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad Martinez Subdivision. It is served by the daily California Zephyr and Coast Starlight long-distance trains, five daily round trips of the San Joaquin corridor service, and fifteen daily round trips of the Capitol Corridor service. Martinez is also served by Amtrak Thruway buses plus County Connection, Tri-Delta Transit, and WestCAT local buses.
Golden Gate Ferry is a commuter ferry service operated by the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District in San Francisco Bay, part of the Bay Area of Northern California, United States. Regular service is run to the Ferry Building in San Francisco from Larkspur, Sausalito, Tiburon, and Angel Island in Marin County, with additional service from Larkspur to Oracle Park and Chase Center. The ferry service is funded primarily by passenger fares and Golden Gate Bridge tolls. In 2022, Golden Gate Ferry had a ridership of 1,022,800, or about 5,400 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2023.
The San Rafael Transportation Center is an intermodal transportation center located in downtown San Rafael, California. It is a primary transfer point for several local and regional bus operators, and a commuter rail station on the Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) system.
The Richmond–San Rafael Ferry Company was a ferry service between Castro Point in Richmond in Contra Costa County and San Quentin in Marin County, California across the San Pablo Bay. It ran from 1915 until the 1956 opening of the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge.
The Tiburon Ferry Terminal is a ferry landing for Golden Gate Ferry and Angel Island–Tiburon Ferry Company passenger ferries in Tiburon, California in the San Francisco Bay Area's North Bay. It connects commuters from Marin County with job centers in San Francisco across the San Francisco Bay to the Ferry Building. The terminal also provides tourist and recreational passenger service to the Ayala Cove Ferry Terminal on Angel Island State Park.
Larkspur station is a Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) station in Larkspur, California. The terminal station opened to revenue service on December 14, 2019. It is located 1⁄3 mile (0.5 km) from the Larkspur Landing ferry terminal, across Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.
Golden Gate Ferry Company was a private company which operated automobile ferries between San Francisco, Berkeley and Sausalito before the opening of the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. The company was incorporated in November 1920. In early 1929, the Golden Gate Ferry Company merged with the ferry system of the Southern Pacific railroad, becoming the Southern Pacific-Golden Gate Ferries, Ltd. The auto ferries were discontinued soon after the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges were opened.
The Northwestern Pacific Railroad operated a network of electric interurban lines in Marin County, California from 1903 to 1941. The lines ran to Sausalito at the southern tip of the county, where connecting ferries ran to San Francisco. Trains consisted of electric multiple units powered by third rail electrification. The lines were the first third-rail electrification in California, and the first major railroad to use alternating current signals.
