On March 16, the City of San Francisco and five other Bay Area counties issued a shelter-in-place order for non-essential activities. This was the most severe measure of its kind in the country at the time, with an initial three-week order that ran through April 7.
I am proud to live in a state and region with leaders who took this pandemic seriously and implemented drastic measures early in this worldwide crisis. I am even more proud of my fellow Californians, who have behaved in a manner that is now being seen by health experts as a model for others nationwide!
Almost immediately, however, ferry ridership fell by more than 90 percent and tourism came to a complete halt. Most of the distribution points for the Bay Crossings print publication had little to no activity. With national guidelines restricting movement through the end of April, we saw no reason to put out a regular April issue of Bay Crossings. It was the first time in the two-decade history of our publication that we did not release a monthly issue.
Hoping for the best, we set a goal to publish a special April/May issue featuring articles covering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Bay Area ferry system and tourism industry—effects that are not regularly covered in other news media. These are the industries that have supported Bay Crossings over the years, and we want to return the favor in this current challenging environment.
We have achieved our goal of a special issue, although you will likely notice that this issue is a little smaller than usual. Among other things, several of our normal advertisers had to suspend their ads due to their businesses being closed. We sincerely hope that they get back on their feet soon and look forward to working with them again when conditions improve. We have also removed the ferry schedules pages as the ferries have been in frequent flux during the pandemic; updated schedules are always on baycrossings.com. You will also not see our Around the Bay section (featuring current Bay Area public events) in this issue for obvious reasons.
Our staff writers began working on several assignments in late March and early April and we began posting the articles on baycrossings.com as they came in. You will find many of those articles in this special issue that we sent to press in mid-April and that will remain in circulation through May. We hope to resume regular production with the June issue.
In the meantime, we encourage you to visit baycrossings.com for updates on the ferry system, including schedule changes, on an ongoing basis. Please visit us online also to keep track of the latest developments in public transit and tourism as we attempt to get things back to normal in the coming months.
