One of the most accomplished figures in North Bay public transportation, Stephan Leonoudakis, has died at age 100. If it wasn’t for him, there’d be no Golden Gate ferries. He was pivotal in returning water transportation to the Bay Area.

In 1962, Leonoudakis was appointed by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors as a director of what became the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. He was instrumental in adding “transportation” to the agency’s mission and formal name.

In 1969, the district commissioned the “Feasibility Study of San Francisco-Marin Ferry System.”

Politically well-positioned, Leonoudakis was a law partner with two San Francisco powerhouses, Leo McCarthy and John Foran. McCarthy was Assembly speaker and later lieutenant governor. Foran was a state senator and chaired the Senate’s powerful Transportation Committee. Leonoudakis was also a successful businessperson owning multiple parking garages.

Leonoudakis firmly agreed with the feasibility report’s conclusions and became water transportation’s greatest champion. I served with Leonoudakis when I was on the bridge district board representing the Marin Council of Mayors and Councilmembers from 1982 to 1992.

In those days San Francisco newspaper opinion writers often referred to Leonoudakis as “The Admiral” due to his energetic commitment to water transportation. Always a gentleman, he privately relished the title.

Ferries connected the Bay Area way before bridges. After a decadeslong absence, they returned in 1970 with an old San Diego tour boat renamed “Golden Gate” making the run from Sausalito to the San Francisco Ferry Building. In 1976, that was followed by a big splash: the inauguration of three semi-high-speed ferries traveling from the city to the then new and highly controversial Larkspur Ferry Terminal.

Today, retaining the current Golden Gate Transit boats linking Larkspur, Sausalito, Tiburon and Angel Island State Park to SF is politically a “motherhood issue.” Eliminating these ferry boats would spark outrage. The vessels are a beloved part of Marin’s high quality lifestyle image.

It’s now forgotten that in the 1980s and ’90s in Marin, Golden Gate’s ferries were regarded as an underutilized and expensive experiment promoted by San Francisco interests to get commuter autos off city streets. Larkspur’s ferry terminal was a Marin punchline. It was similar to how many North Bay residents currently view the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit commuter train.

I was no different from my Marin constituents. As a bridge director, I seconded a motion to privatize Golden Gate’s ferries. The idea was that the Blue and Gold Fleet and Crowley Maritime’s Red and White Line would run the service, impractically, without a toll subsidy. The motion was quickly defeated.

Looking back, I was wrong. Leonoudakis and the board’s majority were right.

It took decades, but now Golden Gate ferries are an accepted and practical means of mobility. In ensuing years, Red and White gave up on running their boats connecting the city with Tiburon and Angel Island to Golden Gate Transit.

There’s a good reason that when ferry passengers today disembark behind the Ferry Building, they do so at the Stephan C. Leonoudakis Ferry Terminal. It’s an honor “The Admiral” deserves.

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Meanwhile, readers calling for elimination of the virtually unused Richmond-San Rafael Bridge’s upper deck bikeway have asked for the names and email addresses for Marin delegates to those regional agencies that will ultimately decide the bike lane’s future.

The two agencies that have the authority to make decisions that will affect the lives of 40,000 auto and bus travelers and about 50 commuting cyclists each day are the Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Marin has two BCDC delegates. Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters, smoultonpeters@marincounty.org, and Novato Councilmember Pat Eklund, peklund@novato.org. Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia is a key player on the 27-member BCDC board, john.gioia@bos.cccounty.us. Marin’s sole MTC Commissioner is Moulton-Peters.

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net