Commuter boats’ future still uncertain
The future of the commuter boats is still in jeopardy, even though the MBTA is getting the extra $160 million it said it needed from the state to solve its immediate budget woes.
That is because the transit agency’s financial problems go far beyond its immediate operating shortfall, according to spokesman Joe Pesaturo.
The MBTA had said it needed to plug its $160 million operating deficit by raising fares, cutting subway, bus, and commuter rail service, and eliminating the subsidies for commuter boats. Loss of the subsidies effectively would kill the boat service, according to the private companies running it.
The $160 million is included in the new state budget, but the Executive Office of Transportation and MBTA are going ahead with the cost-saving proposals, Pesaturo said.
“The short-term fix is almost certain to mitigate the magnitude and scope of the fare increase and service cuts,’’ he said. “But keep in mind: Putting ice on a fractured leg may reduce the swelling, but it’s not going to help the patient walk again. The T has an $8 billion debt burden.’’
Pesaturo said the full plan of fare increases and service cuts will be released this week, along with a schedule of public meetings. He also said that the MBTA already has taken other steps to address the crushing debt burden, including unpaid furloughs and wage freezes for nonunion employees.
State Senator Robert Hedlund, a longtime critic of the MBTA’s aggressive expansion and spending, said he’s not surprised that the agency is going ahead given its “dire fiscal situation.’’ But he said he hoped the commuter boats would be spared.
About 3,500 people use the ferries to get between Boston and Hingham, Quincy, or Hull, according to the latest available ridership figures. The MBTA’s contract calls for just under $3.7 million to be paid this fiscal year to the two companies operating the boats.
The commuter boats “are the most efficient of all [the MBTA’s] forms of transportation,’’ Hedlund said. “I don’t see where it makes sense that you kill a successful system, and I mean successful from an environmental, fiscal, transportation, and development standpoint.’’
The boat terminal in Hingham was a key factor in developing the surrounding Hingham Shipyard, 1.2 million square feet of residential, retail, and office space that is not yet completed.
“The whole raison d’etre for the project is that it’s built around the transportation mode,’’ said Joel Sklar, one of the developers. Losing the boats “obviously would not be a very good thing for our project.’’
Hedlund said he’s also heard from many commuter boat riders, and he urged them to either attend the public hearings or forward their concerns through his office.
“It’s lousy for them,’’ he said. “People have been relying on that system for a long time. To have that uncertainty [of whether it will continue] hanging over their heads is not right.’’
The prospect of losing the boats is particularly unsettling for people in Hull, who also could lose their bus connection to the Greenbush commuter rail stations in Hingham. “It would isolate the town,’’ said Hull Town Manager Philip Lemnios.
Eric Pence has been riding the Hingham commuter boat to work in Boston since 1983. If the service disappears, he said he’d take the Greenbush train, but not happily.
The trains took a large chunk - about 20 percent - out of the Hingham boat ridership when they started on Halloween of 2007, according to Alison Nolan, general manager of Boston Harbor Cruises, which runs the Hingham ferry service. She had anticipated an influx of boat passengers, though, from the new development at the Hingham Shipyard.
Pence said he predicts most boat riders will go back to driving if the boat service disappears.
Johanna Seltz can be reached at seelenfam@verizon.net. 