Boston.com THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

T's notion to dock boats leaves commuters queasy

They know they heard it right, but commuters and local officials still cannot believe the MBTA is considering cutting all commuter boat service to the South Shore, saying the loss would be particularly devastating for Hull, which also could lose its buses.

"It's really, quite frankly, an outrageous proposal," said Hull Town Manager Philip Lemnios.

"It's a tremendous mode of public transportation," said Edward Dixon, who lives in Scituate and has been taking the Hingham boat to work in Boston for 15 years. "It's convenient, cost-effective, and time-efficient." Cutting the boat service "is a horrendous idea."

About 3,500 passengers ride the boats daily, either on the Hingham to Boston line or the one stopping at Quincy, Hull, and Boston. Both routes go to Logan Airport, as well.

The MBTA pays the two companies running the boats a combined $3.69 million subsidy a year, according to MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo.

Eliminating the subsidy - which boat operators say would kill the service - is on the MBTA's list of potential ways to deal with the transit system's estimated $160 million deficit projected for the fiscal year starting in July.

While the MBTA refuses to publicly comment on the list, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council recently sent a copy to all its member towns in this area.

"We wanted to let folks know the cuts that could be on the table unless the state Legislature takes action to stabilize the finances of the MBTA," said Timothy Reardon, the council's senior regional planner and coordinator of the South Shore Coalition, which includes towns from Braintree to Duxbury.

"We can't allow these cuts to happen," he said. "It's too damaging to the region's residents, employers, environment, and the region's future land use planning."

The Legislature is working on a transportation reform bill that would address, in part, the MBTA's budget crisis. No final action is expected before the end of June, according to state Senator Robert Hedlund of Weymouth, a Republican on the committee working out a compromise measure.

"I don't know how real" the threat to cut commuter boat service is, Hedlund said. "It could be scare tactics to prod us into furthering our bailout of the MBTA."

But the Legislature is in no position to throw the agency a lifeboat, he said.

"They're carrying over $8 billion in debt, the most in-debt transit authority in the world," said Hedlund. "We don't have the ability to bail them out. The transportation reform bill will provide a little relief, but not to the point where they can get out of the hole."

Hedlund and other ferry advocates said eliminating the boats doesn't make sense, since they're relatively inexpensive to operate, especially compared with the commuter rail. The Greenbush line loses nearly $30,000 a day, Hedlund said, while at peak times the boats support themselves.

"If it was a decision based on economics, you wouldn't cut the boats," he said.

While ferry supporters are angry about the MBTA's proposal to cut the boat service, they're not surprised. Boats, they say, never have gotten any respect.

"People who are focused on tunnels and rails don't understand [ferries] and the transportation capacity they can provide," said Martha Reardon (no relation to Timothy Reardon) of Hingham, head of a National Academy of Sciences study on ferry guidelines. "Look at New York, where the Staten Island ferry carries 60,000 people a day."

Ferries were one of the earliest forms of transportation between Boston and the South Shore; local histories mention Daniel Webster using the boat to get from Boston to Hingham. Construction of Route 3 took its toll, but the ferries continued intermittently until 1984, when the reconstruction of Route 3 led the state to invest in the Hingham boat, Reardon said.

Ridership grew, and the Quincy boats started in 1996, with stops in Hull and Logan Airport.

By 2006, about 3,700 people took the Hingham boat each day; that number fell by about 20 percent when the Greenbush commuter rail opened and siphoned off passengers, said Alison Nolan, general manager of Boston Harbor Cruises, which runs the Hingham service.

The Quincy boats also lost passengers, especially when the MBTA raised parking fees at the ferry parking lot, said William Walker, co-owner of Water Transportation Alternatives, which runs the Quincy and Hull boats.

But Walker and Nolan said they have loyal riders - free popcorn on Thursday and Friday nights helps - and had anticipated increasing service, not cutting it. Officials in Hull also had hoped for more summer service for commuters and beachgoers.

Walker said he's even been talking to the MBTA about adding stops in South Boston. Nolan said her company expected a surge in ridership with the development of the Hingham Shipyard, where 1.2 million square feet of residential, retail, and office space is planned.

In fact, the developer of the shipyard said ferry service is key to its success.

"The whole raison d'etre for the project is that it's built around the transportation mode," said Joel Sklar of Samuels and Associates. "We really hope they can work this out."

State Representative Garrett Bradley, who represents Hingham and Hull, said he has talked to state Transportation Secretary James Aloisi about the "devastating" impact losing the commuter boats would have.

"He told me he understood my concerns and that no decisions have been made," Bradley said. "He needs to see what the revenue source will be and he won't [know] until July 1. So we have to wait till then." 

© Copyright The New York Times Company