"FATHER"
OF GOLDEN GATE FERRY SYSTEM RETIRES LOOKING
BACK ON HIS MANY YEARS OF SERVICE
By F. Weston Starratt,
P.E.
 |
| Stephan (with his wife
Rosemary) receives Local Distinguished Service
Award from American Public Transit Association in 1996 |
Earlier
this year, Stephan C. Leonoudakis, often called the "Father
of the Golden Gate Ferry System" retired from the Board of
Directors of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation
District after 38 years of dedicated service.
In 1967, with Golden Gate
Bridge traffic growing at more than 7 percent a year,
policymakers began examining options for improving traffic flow
between Marin and San Francisco, taking a look at a second
bridge deck and even a second bridge. But, it was Leonoudikus
who stepped forward, and asked the question, "Why not bring
back water transit to the San Francisco Bay?"
Leonoudikus firmly believed
that water transit held the answer to mounting traffic problems,
and set about moving the bridge board and the state legislature
in that direction. His efforts culminated in the 1969 passage of
Assembly Bill 584 that
transformed the Bridge
District into the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation
District and directed it to develop a transportation facilities
plan, including water transportation, for the Highway 101
corridor. Thus, the die was cast, and the district sparked the
rebirth of ferry service on the Bay with the inauguration of
service from Sausalito and Larkspur to San Francisco. Water
transit service on San Francisco Bay was reborn, thanks in large
part to the untiring efforts of Stephan Leonoudikus.
We caught up with Stephan
Leonoudikus recently on the way to his retirement home in
Arizona. We asked him,
Are you a San Franciscan?
Yea, I am a local guy. I went
to grammar school and high school in San Francisco and then to
USF undergraduate. I went to law school at USF, graduating in
1950, and was admitted to practice in 1951. I was appointed by
the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to the Golden Gate Bridge
District in 1962.
 |
| Stephan and DA Mayor at
christening ceremonies for new high speed catamaran Sept
1998. Stephan gave the Mayor a captain’s hat! |
How did you move the bridge
district into public transit?
With the deterioration of
Greyhound Bus service, which was the only public transit service
across the bridge, I felt that the bridge district should play a
role that is more penetrating to community needs. But, to
transform the district into a bridge and transportation
district, we had to change the law that established the
district. When the necessary legislation was passed, we then had
to set about trying to find funding sources to enable us to get
into the transit business. The first thing that caught our
attention was water transit. The Tiburon ferry was strikebound,
and the district was able to maintain that service during an
extended strike.
Once we had the experience of
operating the Tiburon ferry, we thought that we could make ferry
service work. We went down to San Diego and found a boat that we
were able to have brought back and converted into the MV (motor
vessel) Golden Gate, which became the Sausalito ferry. We
rebuilt the boat, put her in service, and we were off and
running with Sausalito all to ourselves.
And what happened to the
deteriorating Greyhound Bus system?
As we were developing our
transit system, we had the Philip Spaulding group in Seattle,
which had redesigned the MV Golden Gate, working on plans for
the further development of our ferry system. But, the key to the
whole multi-modal system was obtaining the money for a bus
terminal and a fleet of buses. To find that money, we went back
to Washington with a tin-cup and finally sold the Urban Mass
Transit Administration on our system: two modes of
transportation, buses and ferries, working as a compatible pair.
We also received from UMTA, the money to acquire land for ferry
terminals in Sausalito and Larkspur as well as the funds to
build three new ferries designed by Spaulding. What we needed
next were operating subsidies, which we found in Washington and
in Sacramento, as well as from the Bridge District itself.
CONTINUE
