Friends of the Berkeley Ferry was born in 1989, after the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay area with a magnatiture 7.1 trembler.  The earthquake severely damaged the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, closing the bridge down for a month.  The Berkeley Ferry came into being, again (actually, a resumption of ferry serivce after a 40-year absence -- see History).
 

Friends of the Berkeley Ferry is devoted to transit-friendliness and environmentalism.
 

A Brief History of ferries in Berkeley

What happened to the ferry in '89