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Charlestown getting its ferries back
By adamg on Mon, 04/26/2021 - 1:22pm
The MBTA announced today that it'll be using some of that sweet federal stimmy to resume the Charlestown and Hingham ferries it had canceled in January because of Covid-19-related lack of demand, starting May 22.
The resumption will mean 78 ferry runs over the work week and 34 weekend trips to and from Charlestown and 14 daily inbound trips to Rowes Wharf from Hingham and 11 outbound trips back to Hingham. Also:
Service between Hingham, Hull, and Long Wharf will continue with the addition of limited weekday service to Logan Airport resuming, including two inbound trips to Long Wharf in Boston at 12:45 PM and 5:45 PM and two outbound trips from Long Wharf to Logan at 6:40 AM and 7:40 AM.
Weekend service between Hingham, Hull, Logan Airport, and Long Wharf will resume. Ten inbound trips will depart Hingham for Long Wharf beginning at 8 AM and ending at 5 PM with five trips stopping at Hull and three trips stopping at Logan Airport. Ten outbound trips will depart Long Wharf for Hingham beginning at 9 AM and ending at 6 PM with one trip stopping at Logan Airport and four trips stopping at Hull.
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Comments
Priorities, priorities...
While majority-white, upper-class riders are getting their ferry back in a month, poor bus riders will have to wait one more month (until June 20) to see the restoration of only 4 bus lines, all "with limited service". There's also no word on the rest of the ~20 bus routes that were cut.
That's because the majority
That's because the majority of bus routes which serve poor people weren't cut in the first place.
The routes being restored include the 52 and 68, which don't exactly serve poor areas.
I fail to see how running an empty bus or boat back and forth all day helps anyone, rich or poor.
I would not call Hull upper-class
I don't know what its ethnic makeup is, but it's not a rich community.
Greater Hull
The ferry serves Cohasset, Hingham, Scituate, etc. commuters.
Make whatever judgement you wish with those communities.
Hull never got its ferry service cut...
At least not entirely. The 714 bus was preserved as well.
Meanwhile, miles of bus lines elsewhere in the MBTA network have been cut entirely, and there's still no definite plan for restoration.
Hull is 96% white and the
Hull is 96% white and the median household income is almost $90,000. So, pretty white and well off. AKA Bakers demographic.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/hullcdpmassachusetts/INC110219
"Read more" link is missing
There's a lot more to this post than you put on the front page, but you forgot to include the "Read more" link.
Also, weekend service returning to Hingham and Hull ferries
starting May 22.
In past years, this weekend service has been seasonal, though I don't remember whether it ran through Labor Day, Columbus/Indigenous Peoples' Day, or later into the fall.
Good news!
Maybe they could put some of that money towards bringing back the East Boston ferries. Among other things, it would make getting back and forth with a bike possible for rush hour passengers.
What East Boston ferry? If
What East Boston ferry? If there was one, it wasn't operated by the T.
If bike access is the issue, they could solve the problem much more cheaply by allowing bikes on the Blue Line at all times.
The NYC subway has a very simple bike policy: Yes.
Even if allowed at rush hour...
... it’s physically impossible to cram a bike into already overcrowded cars. Let alone the people without bikes who have to let trains pass them by before they can get on one. They’d benefit from a ferry as well.
And yes, there was a ferry from East Boston. I don’t know who ran it but I think it was shut down before the MTA became the MBTA. You can Google it, if you need to know more.
Maybe rethink the ferries entirely
Instead of a point-to-point ferry system, think more like the vaporetti in Venice: multiple stops along a route. The stops don't add too much time as long as they're reasonably in a straight line.
I'd run a single route as follows:
Chelsea-Eagle Hill (Eastie)-Spaulding (Charlestown)-Constitution (Charlestown, transfer)-Battery Wharf (North End)-Long Wharf-Fan Pier-Airport-Piers Park-Constitution (transfer)-North Station.
Run it bidirectionally every 10 or 15 minutes, letting people transfer between boats at the Constitution stop.
Sure, Eastie to Downtown isn't a non-stop trip, but you serve many more markets and if you do so frequently, it gets a lot more ridership.
Plus, it would be a heck of a tourist trap on a nice day.
I’d ride it ...
... just for fun.
Several tries have been made,
Several tries have been made, no $$ in it....RFPs put out & no responses.
Is this the T's highest
Is this the T's highest service priority?
Probably the easiest to deal
Probably the easiest to deal with.
The boats are there and demand was there
I used to live in the Hingham shipyard and taking the boat was a great way to get to work. Traffic up 93 and the trains are just a slow drag.
But, no boats, no me. The revenue from me for a boat pass was $300+/month and hundreds of others paid that also. That doesn't include the drinks on the way there and back ;-)
But, cancelled service and now a reduced service. I'm gone to another state. No doubt others will be gone also.
I used to work on the
I used to work on the commuter boats, lots of fun.
No
The T has higher service priorities. The T has many responsibilities of which running the ferry is just one.
Next question?