SSA board is focusing on wrong goals

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To the Editor:

It’s been a terrible month for the Steamship Authority. The cancellation of boats due to weather or mechanical problems and the poor response by management are the latest crises, but they serve to highlight deeper issues. The board of governors isn’t serving the true mission outlined in its enabling act, which states, “In order to provide adequate transportation of persons and necessaries of life for the Islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, the authority is hereby authorized and empowered …”

The governors seem to have forgotten that mission, and taken up one of maximizing revenue. They have changed the language so that the website states their mission is to serve “everyone from year-round residents, who depend on the ferries for all commerce and transportation to and from the mainland, to a significant seasonal population, to the tourists who visit for a day, a week or longer.”

To that end, they design and purchase larger and larger ferries with more room for cars and trucks. This has led to the purchase of ferries that aren’t safe to run in windy conditions. It has also resulted in increasing auto traffic in the summer, so that most down-Island roads are close to capacity.

This brings up many questions: Why does management refer to us as “customers”? Aren’t we the public, or Islanders, or their constituents?

Why does the authority raise the Islander excursion fare in the summer?

Since it is charged with providing adequate transportation, why doesn’t the authority coordinate its work with other regional groups? Here on the Vineyard, that might mean the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and the VTA. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to decide what the auto capacity of the Island is? Wouldn’t a better investment be to have smaller electric buses that left each bus stop every 15 minutes in the summer, so as to reduce traffic?

Why not make it less expensive to park on the Cape, and raise the fees for car travel that originates off-Island? This would reduce visitor auto traffic and subsidize Islander travel.

It seems to me that the current woes are the end product of the board of governors adopting the wrong goals.

 

Joy Robinson-Lynch

West Tisbury