The Bristol-to-Providence free ferry was a short-lived experiment that started on Dec. 21 as an emergency response to the Washington Bridge closure. But it was dropped on Jan. 19 because of low ridership and steep costs. Does that mean commuter ferry service in the Ocean State is a lost cause, or could it play some role in Rhode Island’s public transit future?
As the sun sets over one of the final free ferries from Providence to Bristol, a group of three retirees, plus their younger friend are seated together, talking and laughing. They’re headed home after a Friday afternoon of drinking beer at Narragansett Brewery on the East Side. Ben Warren said he’s taken the free ferry a total of five times, round-trip.
“Other trips, I’d walk down South Main Street and go to one of the restaurants. And I’d have lunch and then come back. And then we’d walk up through the East Side on Benefit Street,” he said. “We’re all boaters. We’re all yachting type. So we love the water. And I wish this would continue year round.”
He and his friends usually cycle together on the bike path between Bristol and Providence when the weather permits. If it weren’t for the ferry, his friend Jim Flynn said they probably wouldn’t have traveled to Providence to hang out this December or January.
“Since we couldn’t ride we figured we’d come on the boat, go to the beer, and hang out together and ride it back. We’ve had a lot of fun with the ferry that’s been running. If there was a consistent service, I wouldn’t even mind paying,” said Flynn.
The men said their price tag would be $10 or $12 for a round trip ticket. But that amount of money wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover the cost of running the ferry. The state’s public transportation agency says each day the ferry ran, it spent about $100,000 on the service and only averaged 274 passengers. By comparison, all RIPTA bus routes combined cost the state on average $366,605 per day, and daily ridership is 30,931 passenger trips.
Although the ferry ridership numbers sound low, John Flaherty, deputy director of the Providence-based transportation and planning think tank Grow Smart RI said that doesn’t mean the state should abandon the idea of expanding ferry service in the future.
“I think that a ferry service could be much more practical going forward in the state. But it really relies upon having a comprehensive public transit network in place in order for that to succeed,” he said.
Flaherty says the success of the Bristol-Providence ferry was bound to be limited. Statewide data show most people commute to Providence from places on the west side of Narragansett Bay, like Warwick and Cranston. But the temporary route only really benefited people commuting between Bristol and Providence. If the state did want to make a viable go at public ferry service, Flaherty said it would also need a more robust public bus system to transport people from ferry docks to their final destinations.
“The ferry gets you from one dock to another dock,” he said. “And if you don’t have that last leg, then people feel like, ‘Okay, well, they had a shuttle that dropped me in Kennedy Plaza, but then what?’”
In a press conference Monday, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti said the state has no plans to re-start the weekday Bristol-to-Providence ferry service, even if it now thinks the bridge could be closed much longer than initially expected.
Public transit advocates say the best option for lessening traffic during the remainder of the westbound closure of the Washington Bridge is to get more people on RIPTA buses.
“One bus can replace up to 40 cars, right? So if we’re actually looking for the fastest way to move people across what’s left of the bridge, buses are by far our best bet,” said state Senator Meghan Kallman, of Pawtucket.
Kallman says the state could help convince more people to take the bus if Rhode Island provided free RIPTA service over the Washington Bridge until regular traffic is restored.
In addition to temporary RIPTA service to ease congestion during the west-bound bridge closure, advocates like Kallman and Flaherty say besides preserving current service, the state should be focusing on, and funding, a long term plan it published that calls for the significant expansion of public transportation services by 2040 – a plan that creates more rapid transit bus lanes and/or light rails, but also increases ferry service.
