On Tuesday, in its first in-person meeting on the Vineyard since the start of the global pandemic, the Steamship Authority board voted 4-0 with one abstention to approve rate hikes for both Vineyard and Nantucket passenger and vehicle passage. Barnstable board member Robert Jones was the abstaining vote.
The lightly attended meeting was held in Vineyard Haven at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center. Prior to voting in the rate hikes, the board unanimously approved a $132 million operating budget. SSA treasurer Mark Rozum reiterated for the board what he told the Port Council last week — that fuel costs and general inflation were the fiscal pressures that affected the budget and necessitated rate hikes. Those rate hikes, however, no longer were across the board. On Tuesday, increases to excursion rates were completely stayed following debate sparked by Falmouth board member Peter Jeffrey. Jones was critical of the select attention given to the excursion rates, and suggested calculations put together by SSA staff shouldn’t be tinkered with in line-item fashion.
The rate hikes affect walk-on passengers, as well as vehicles. Here’s how:
Passengers
- Adults: 50 cents, raising a $9 ticket one-way to $9.50
- Children or seniors: 25 cents, raising a $4.50 ticket to $4.75
- Adult 10-ride: $4, raising an $82 pass to $86
- Children or seniors 10-ride: $2.50, raising a $50 pass to $52.50
- 46-ride: $9, raising a $165 pass to $174
Vehicles
Standard-fare vehicles saw a hike for passage one-way. Standard-fare vehicles are those subject to non-Islander rates (no excursion discounts). There are a number of variables for how standard-fare vehicles are charged. Rates fluctuate over the course of six different monthly periods in a given year. They also vary based on whether a vehicle is 17 feet or less, or between 17 feet and 20 feet. The 2023 rate hikes add from $5 to $10 to these fares. The most inexpensive standard-fare rates occur in the winter, and the most pricey occur on the weekends in the high summer season.
- Most inexpensive standard rates: Jan. 1 to March 1 all days of the week; increase: $5, raising a $59 fare one-way to $64 for vehicles less than 17 feet, and a $69 fare one-way to $74 for vehicles 17 feet to 20 feet.
- Most standard expensive rates: May 1 to Sept. 14, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays; increase: $10, raising a $115 fare one-way to $125 for vehicles less than 17 feet, and a $125 fare one-way, going to $135 for vehicles 17 feet to 20 feet.
10-ride vehicle coupon books, standard fare, also went up in price.
- Increase: $45, raising a $910 booklet to $955 for vehicles less than 17 feet, and also for vehicles between 17 feet and 20 feet.
- Trucks over 20 feet saw an 8 percent rate increase.
There are also increases at the SSA’s parking lots.
- Year-round parking permits: $50, raising a $1,200-per-year Woods Hole lot permit to $1,250, and a $750 Palmer Ave. lot permit to $800.
- Daily parking: $1, raising a $13 fee per day to $14, or a $10 fee in November and December to $11.
At the meeting Jeffrey noted the SSA is the lifeline to the Islands, and the proposed excursion fare increases would yield little overall. He asked if the excursion increase was necessary to meet the ferry line’s budget goals.
Rozum said previously staff were looking for a bigger excursion hike, but the Port Council objected, and the adjustment was lessened.
“How much of a bind would it put us in if we didn’t raise the excursion fares?” Jeffrey asked.
Rozum said he looked at that possibility, and said if the shoulder season rates for standard-fare vehicles were increased by $2, then that would offset the loss of proposed revenue from an excursion fare hike. Those shoulder-season rate increases, which the board ultimately endorsed part and parcel with all other rate increases, add $2 on both Island routes from Jan. 1 to May 14 and from Sept. 15 to the end of the year.
Vineyard board member Jim Malkin said he wanted to lend support to Jeffrey’s suggestion of a stay on an excursion rate hike. However, he had port concerns. “I’ve had a good bit of correspondence, or as I call it, ‘fan mail,’” Malkin said, “from people from the port communities who are not on the Island, about the inequity of Islanders having cheaper fares than people in the port communities coming here, whether they be from Falmouth, Hyannis, or New Bedford. And that raises a concern in my mind about the fairness and legality of the pricing differential.”
Malkin asked SSA general counsel Terence Kenneally to weigh in.
“Like anything legal with the Steamship Authority, what’s dictated by what the board can and cannot do — it’s the enabling act,” Kenneally said.
He said the SSA had a “statutory mission” to provide “adequate transportation to folks on the Islands.” He didn’t point out any portion of the enabling act specific to excursion rates, however.
Kenneally further said, “It’s up to the board, in its discretion and review of the issues, to set the rates as to how effectively they meet that statutory mandate.”
“The board, if they so choose,” SSA general manager Robert Davis said, “can set the rates as they deem appropriate.” Davis added that that was within “the parameters of what the enabling act allows for.”
Jones, who ultimately abstained, couldn’t abide by excursion rate hikes. “I don’t think that’s a wise move,” he said.
Board chair Moira Tierney, who represents New Bedford and attended remotely, supported not increasing excursion rates, and adopting the Rozum alternative.
Nantucket board member Rob Ranney, vice chair, endorsed the Rozum alternative too.
In an apparent effort to illustrate that both Islands have different cost structures for excursion rates, Davis said, “The excursion rates are steeply discounted for both routes. But as a comparison, for a vehicle under 17 feet on the Vineyard run it’s $73 in the off-season and $106 in the season. It’s $182 in the off-season on the Nantucket route, and $246 in the season. It’s similarly discounted, but the rates they have on the Nantucket run are a lot more.”
Rozum estimated the $2 shoulder rate hike would provide $243,000 in additional revenue, while the previously proposed excursion rate hike would generate $245,000 in additional revenue.
Rozum recommended adopting the $2 shoulder-season increase if the board nixed the excursion hike.
Davis described the Rozum’s proposal as a “fine alternative.”
Malkin made the motion to adopt rate hikes that included the Rozum alternative to excursion increases.
General opening announced
Davis outlined a proposed 2023 reservation timeline, starting with the Head Start program.
Typically the program lets preferred and excursion customers make up to five reservations before reservations to the general public open. However, Davis said, staff had recommended allowing up 10 reservations for 2023, albeit with only five transferable (able to be transferred to somebody else). The other five have to be in the name of the profile holder making the reservations. Davis said the head start transfer deadline will be May 15 “or 30 days prior to travel, whichever occurs first.”
Malkin said the boost in the reservation allotment was meant to address problems over the summer.
“As a result of the issues raised over last summer from Islanders about the difficulties getting reservations, what we’ve just done is we’ve doubled the numbers of advance reservations that can be made early by Islanders to travel off the Island and back on the Island for the summer season,” he said. “And I’d like to thank the authority for having taken that under consideration and doing that.”
- Head Start, which is mail and internet only, will run Jan. 10 to 16.
- The general opening for Nantucket reservations via the internet will be Jan. 17 to 23.
- The general opening for Vineyard reservations via the internet will be Jan. 24 to 30.
Davis noted reservation office hours will be extended to offer support for things like web passwords. During that period, hours will be 7 am to 6 pm.
- The telephone opening will be Jan. 31.
Malkin asked Alison Fletcher, director of shoreside operations, if staff shortages would affect 2023 reservations openings.
Fletcher said she expected no problems as she hired some new reservation agents, and was getting them “geared up and ready” for the 2023 openings.
Davis noted the SSA is “still looking for additional clerks” if anybody is interested in a job.
During a public comment period, West Tisbury resident Harriet Bernstein told the board
she has a rental property that she depends on for income, and she suffered four cancellations last season because people couldn’t reserve ferry passage. Bernstein said that was impactful to her livelihood, and asked how it could have happened, and what she can expect next season. She said she heard conflicting reports of telephone reservations being a better bet for success than online reservations. She further said, paradoxically, she got news of boats with ample space.
Davis said a couple of issues could have been at play. One was that a reservation anomaly was showing some space availability but not others. He said the problem was being worked on. He also said there was a heavy usage burden.
“The visitors this past January for the Vineyard route,” Davis said, “I think it was a record year in terms of the number of bookings that were made in advance for the summer …”
Davis said staff is considering pushing out spaces that are available seven days in advance to 30 days in advance, to help folks with vehicle passage.
Davis also said vessel variety has created space problems.
“Some of it is a matter of the mix of the vessels that we have,” he said. “So we have vessels in which, depending on the weight of the vehicles that show up, it changes what we can and cannot put on that trip. We’re trying to get a better handle as to forecasting what those weights maybe [for] those vehicles, so that way we can make a determination ahead of time whether that space is available for any customer — whether it’s an Island customer or standard-fare customer — to be able to utilize that space. Unfortunately, what’s been happening, as it has been earlier in the morning, we end up moving vehicles ahead, or if there is a no-show or something, it ends up cascading throughout the day. And so we’re trying to get a better handle on that. It takes a lot. It’s more of a manual process in terms of looking at it, because [those] allocations are unique to each vessel. We just need to be doing a better job of looking into that space ahead of time, making sure that it is available.”
Davis continued with a mea culpa.
“And there were some instances that I’ll admit we did drop the ball,” he said. “There were trips out there that were flagged as being available for freight, and those weren’t made available for automobile traffic. And then come the day of sailing, on the weekends, there was actually no freight. So all of a sudden we have nearly a full load of cars that we’re able to take.”
Davis recommended the SSA waitlist to Bernstein.
“I would encourage any of your renters, if they don’t find the space that they want, that they should use the waitlist,” he said. “The waitlist is a fantastic tool.”
“I’ve been doing this business for almost 20 years,” Bernstein said. “This year was like, ridiculous.”
Should the new freight boat Aquinnah be ready by next summer, Davis said he expected that will free up space.
Malkin told Bernstein, “if you have the ability to change your rental periods so people aren’t coming and going on the weekends, that would probably be helpful, because our weekend traffic has gone crazy.”