Could Vancouver’s ferries work in the Anacostia?
Photo by Potjie on Flickr.
A fleet of tiny ferries zigzags back and forth between neighborhoods and major tourist attractions on both sides of Vancouver’s False Creek. Could the same work on the Anacostia River, connecting sites on Buzzard Point, Near Southeast, Poplar Point and Anacostia Park?
When visiting Vancouver a few years ago, Greater Greater Wife and I took a hop on-hop off bus tour. When we got to the city’s aquatic center, the guide suggested catching a small ferry to Granville Island, where a major food market draws locals and tourists. After we took in the market, we rode the ferry to other neighborhoods where we could get back on the bus.
Most ferries we’re familiar with in eastern US cities are huge 1,000 passenger, car-carrying ferries like the Cape May-Lewes ferry, or 150-250 passenger water taxis like in New York. These ferries are far, far smaller, closer to the size of a van and hold only 12 or 20 passengers.
Top: The Spirit of False Creek 3. Bottom left: Cape May-Lewes ferry.
Bottom right: NY water taxi. Images from Wikipedia.
An operator stands on a platform in the center and drives the boat with a few joysticks and handles, while passengers sit around the edges. It operates a lot like a bus; in fact, the drivers even cruise past some of the docks and won’t stop if nobody’s waiting to get on or off.
The False Creek ferries only ply a route about 2 miles from end to end as the crow flies, or 3 route miles, zigzagging back and forth across the waterway.
Besides Granville Island and the science museum, they stop at a maritime museum, science museum, and a space museum with a planetarium and observatory. A stop in Stamps Landing takes you to a neighborhood with a lot of restaurants, and another, Yaletown, is a district with many new condo towers.
Each stop is only about 2-5 minutes apart, and costs $3.25 to $6.50 CAD depending on how far you go. The most popular route, the aquatic center to Granville Island, runs every 5 minutes from 7 am to 9 pm, or 10:30 pm in the summer. The other routes run every 15 minutes from about 9 am to 5-6 pm (depending on destination) in the winter and 7-9 pm during summer.
Best of all, the ferries actually operate completely self-sufficiently. In fact, there are 2 ferry companies that compete with one another!
Is this relevant to DC? It turns out that False Creek is about the size of the Anacostia:
False Creek (top) and Anacostia River (bottom) at the same scale. Images from Google Maps.
Potential ferry stops on the Anacostia. Image by the author on Google Maps.