Public
transportation is a money-losing proposition.
But Connecticut is home to one of the few profitable transit companies
in the US. It’s not CT Transit or
Metro-North, both of which are heavily subsidized. No, the operation that’s squarely in the black
is the Bridgeport – Port Jefferson Steamboat Company, a.k.a. “the ferry”.
“If
you tried to start this ferry company today, you couldn’t do it,” says the
ferry company’s Chief Operating Officer, Fred Hall. Today’s ferry is a legacy of the 1883
cross-Sound service run by PT Barnum.
Hall
has been on the boats since 1976 when he worked weekends as a bartender as a
“side-hustle” to his advertising job in New York City. In those days they used to run a Friday and
Saturday night “Rock the Sound” cruise leaving Port Jefferson at 10 pm. Complete with a live rock band and a lot of
drinking (the legal age then was 18), the three hour cruise drew 600 passengers
a night.
From
there Hall was promoted to General Manager of the Bridgeport terminal,
Assistant General Manager and finally to Vice President in charge of the entire
operation. And he thoroughly enjoys his
work, commuting from his home on Long Island to inspect the three-vessel fleet
several times a week.
He’s
not alone: the ferry carries almost 100
daily walk-on commuters, crossing in both directions, who are an important
indicator of the economy’s strength to Hall.
“When the numbers of monthly commuter (at $240 per month) are high,
that’s a sign of a weakening jobs market because people have to commute long
distances to find work,” he observes.
But
for cars carried on the ferry the opposite is true. “In 2005 we carried 460,000 cars. In 2018, only 450,000.” Why?
Because Hall says so many of his repeat customers are using the ferry to
get to second homes… beach homes on Long Island or winter ski cabins in New
England.
“You
can probably fly out West in the winter and get more reliable snow conditions
and still save money compared to driving to Vermont,” Hall says of his
northbound Long Island customers.
Big
changes are coming for the Bridgeport ferry, starting with an annual May fare
increase. Tickets which used to be sold onboard “using carnival tickets on a
broom handle” are now e-tickets sold and scanned before boarding. If you’re bringing a car, reservations are a
must, especially on weekends. If you
show up without a ticket expect to pay a surcharge, just like on Metro-North.
The
ferry company is still working on moving to a new, larger terminal farther east
in the harbor, a 19-acre site that will also support a deep-water shipping pier…
if the US Army Corps of Engineers dredges the harbor. But that work is a Catch 22, he says. “They dredge where there’s shipping traffic. But that traffic depends on dredging.”
The
new, $35 million ferry terminal will save up to eight minutes unloading and
loading the ship and allow foot passengers to board using Jetways. Depending on permits, this new terminal might
open in 2020 – 2021. The ferry company also
hopes to add a fourth ferry to its fleet, built in the US and probably costing
$30 – 40 million.
But
long rumored plans to run additional ferry service from New Haven to Port
Jefferson LI probably won’t happen, says Hall.
“We just couldn’t find the land (for a terminal)” in New Haven.
Posted with permission of Hearst CT Media
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