Ryer Island Rio Vista Ferry upgrade notices by CalTrans

CalTrans notices regarding upgrades to the Ryer Island-Rio Vista Ferry, also called the Cache Slough Ferry and the Real McCoy Ferry.
CalTrans recently sent out new releases to the media and Delta-related organizations, and the owners of property on Ryer Island, that the Ryer Island-Rio Vista ferry will be taken out of service for one month, starting the afternoon of January 12, 2009. According to the notices, they plan to repair weak areas, put in new engines and paint the ferry-the oldest running piece of equipment CalTrans owns. For years we've been told a new ferry was being built. 2007 Assemblyperson Wolk even published an article about taking bids for a new ferry and that funding was put aside for the new ferry. Instead, they plan to redo the ferry. Here's the links:
UPDATE 2-8-09. We received notice from CalTrans that the Ryer Island Ferry will be back up by Feb 22, 2009 in the late afternoon. Here's a link for info and a cool video from Caltrans: Caltrans notice : PDF video: http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist4/video.htm Notice From CalTrans District 4 about the "Cache Slough Ferry" A different Dist 4 notice: http://www.solanolinks.com/rss/pdfs/121908%20Rio%20Vista%20Ferries.pdf Notice from CalTrans District about the Rio Vista Ferry Link to online video about the ferry from 10/17/08...but this news station seems to say it is going out of commission permanently. We've contacted them to find out why... http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/north_bay&id=6456163&rss=rss-kgo-article-6456163 Link to Assembly Person Wolk's referenced article about replacing the ferry: http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=385433 http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/7494 Sacramento Bee article: http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/1496176.html