As the Steamship Authority (SSA) looks at navigating revenue drops and economic tripwires to formulate its budget for next year, one town on the Island says it’s subsidized too much of the ferry line’s operations.
The culmination of several factors is raising questions of how fares could be impacted on the main ferry line between the Island and Woods Hole.
Oak Bluffs sent state legislators representing the Island a letter on August 28 calling for a quadrupling of embarkation fees, which are paid by ferry services that depart with passengers from the town.
The letter, unanimously approved by the Oak Bluffs Select Board on August 25, calls for an increase to the fees from 50 cents to $2. It also asks for the implementation of an annual adjustment based on the local consumer price index (CPI) to keep up with inflation.
Embarkation fees, passed in 2003 and overseen by the state Department of Revenue, allow communities in Dukes, Nantucket, Barnstable, and Bristol counties to charge the fee on all ferry trips that depart from municipalities in these areas, excluding boat services that are licensed to carry only up to 100 passengers. These municipalities include all of the places with Steamship Authority facilities: Tisbury, Oak Bluffs, Falmouth, Barnstable, Nantucket, New Bedford, and Fairhaven. The fees are used to mitigate the impact of ferry services in town, which can include paying police at the terminals to road maintenance.
The fees are built into tickets purchased by travelers, but Oak Bluffs officials say that their community is burdened by the expenses needed at the terminal, such as police details, and the surge of seasonal visitors over the years that’s stressed town resources.
“Our small permanent community can no longer shoulder the tax burden required to subsidize public infrastructure that scales for hundreds of thousands of seasonal travelers,” the letter states, noting that its infrastructure must be designed to serve summer peaks of “well over 50,000 people,” 10 times the town’s year-round population of around 5,341 residents. This is compounded by major “capital liabilities that cannot be indefinitely deferred,” such as its share of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School renovations and coastal resiliency projects for harbor infrastructure.
And the board argues that its community has not been able to reap the benefits of the embarkation fees because of diversions, often due to weather, to Vineyard Haven. The diversion of SSA ferries from Oak Bluffs has been a longtime complaint; town officials have highlighted the loss of revenue and business owners have complained about a drop in foot traffic to downtown shops due to diversions.
At the Port Council meeting on Sept. 1, Oak Bluffs councillor Joe Sollitto questioned why the diversions are so much more frequent in his town, only about three miles away from Vineyard Haven. The number of trips diverted from Oak Bluffs also saw a sharp increase this year, 160 as of July compared to the 81 diversions in all of 2025.
SSA COO Mark Amundsen said diversions are made at the captain’s discretion for safety reasons, usually from weather conditions like high wind and sea swells from certain directions that can make unloading conditions dangerous at the transfer bridge in Oak Bluffs. Nat Lowell, the Nantucket councillor, called it “an open ocean issue.”
The last time an embarkation fee hike was suggested was in 2023 when Oak Bluffs and Tisbury jointly called for a tripling of the fees, which was unsuccessful. At the time, it was the first such request in nearly 20 years.
Debra Alley, the Oak Bluffs select board executive assistant, said copies of the August letter were also shared with Oak Bluffs finance and advisory committee chair Robert Malecki as well as town administrators James Hagerty of Edgartown and Joe LaCivita of Tisbury, whose municipalities’ ports also host ferries.
LaCivita told The Times this “important conversation” is planned to be held by the Tisbury Select Board on Sept. 8.
“As the only year-round entry port to the Island, Tisbury does receive a greater impact on our roadways,” LaCivita said in an email to The Times.
An embarkation fee discussion isn’t planned to be held by Edgartown, which Hagerty said takes an annual fee from the Falmouth Edgartown Ferry to use Memorial Wharf.
Geoff Spillane, SSA spokesperson, said the ferry line is aware of the town’s request but noted any changes will need to be made through the Massachusetts legislature.
“If a legislative bill proposing the changes is filed, the Authority will closely monitor the process,” Spillane said in a statement. “Any increase in the fee would be a pass-through transaction for the Authority, but could impact its capacity for future fare increases, if necessary.”
One such bill, filed by State Sen. Julian Cyr, is currently under review in a senate committee. Another, introduced by State Rep. Kip Diggs of Barnstable, was rejected but is being reworked. Cyr said the hope is to have both versions approved by the end of the year.
Cyr’s version calls for an embarkation fee increase from 50 cents to $1. Whether the state legislators would back Oak Bluffs’ request to quadruple the fee remains unknown.
“What’s most critical from a Steamship Authority perspective is that the fees are uniform across all communities,” Cyr said, noting varying fees would be an “accounting nightmare.”
Cyr noted that the embarkation fees are separate from the SSA operational budget, but his concern was making sure changes wouldn’t be passed onto the consumer.
Thomas Moakley, who was out holding a campaign sign during the primary election at the entrance of Town Hall Square in Falmouth, told The Times a “reasonable, moderate increase that will actually help the port communities” is a conversation worth having. Moakley said he hopes to hear from other towns beyond Oak Bluffs on the matter.
“My concern is making sure that the tickets don’t get too expensive for Islanders that are commuting on or off or going off-Island regularly,” he said.
In the face of dwindling revenue, whether Islanders’ discounted vehicle rates should have limits was also raised in a recent SSA board meeting last month.
During the August 18 SSA board meeting, ferry leadership stated a financial analysis would be done to determine how to meet a leaner budget.
“That’s something we really need to get to,” Alex Kryska, SSA general manager, said at the August meeting. “Getting at the root cause, making sure we have the right staff working at the right spot, and minimizing our expenses as much as we can and … not overgrowing just to overgrow.”
Mark Rozum, SSA treasurer and comptroller, noted at the time that while he doesn’t anticipate a deficit, factors that need to be analyzed include lower revenue from passengers, parking, and freight. While Rozum noted the August numbers that still need to be finalized look better, the latest numbers shared at the Port Council meeting on Sept. 1 showed a downward trend in 2026 through July compared to the previous year on the Vineyard route.
This equates to a 4.7 percent decrease in passengers (62,779 this year), 2.7 percent decrease in passenger vehicles (7,407), 3.4 percent decrease in freight trucks (1,244), and a 10.9 percent decrease in parked cars (8,299). The Nantucket route overall fared better, with only parked cars seeing a decrease as of July compared to the previous year.
In August, Rozum suggested placing a cap on the number of times the excursion rate, which gives discounts to Islanders, can be used per month. According to a SSA report, excursion fares covered 27.3 percent of the ferry line’s costs to carry passengers and vehicles, which was subsidized by the 155.5 percent covered by the standard fares.
“So, we’re making less money on revenue because the tickets that are increasing in quantity are the ones where we lose money on every one,” Ted Gavin, the Vineyard board representative, said.
Gavin asked what an increase to the excursion rate would do, and Rozum said a “$5 increase per leg” would save the ferry line $1 million. In 2025, Rozum said, there were 210,000 trips on the Vineyard route using excursion rates. Rozum also said the SSA is looking at what changes are possible based on the reservation system that is still under development and has experienced delays.
Robert Jones, the Barnstable board representative, noted in August that the budget always has its ups and downs.
“I don’t see anything different from what’s happened the last 20 years,” he said.
The excursion fare increased last year for the first time since 2021; there were other fare increases across the board.
The SSA is also looking at other economic pressures as it considers its budget for next year, which is usually completed in the late fall. The ferry line had to pay an additional $81,076.15 due to tariffs in repairs to the freight ferry Barnstable, a cost contractors are passing onto customers, according to Amundsen. Spillane said there are “negligible impacts” from tariffs, “but it is difficult to plan accordingly due to frequently shifting policies,” and the ferry line is watching the U.S.-Canada trade war that is expected to increase the cost of goods. Several other boats, like the freight ferry Woods Hole, are also entering maintenance. Zachary Lawrence, engineering and maintenance director, said a contingency cost associated with tariffs could be budgeted.
Meanwhile, fuel is another cost Rozum noted the SSA is wary of; it’s one expense that’s risen sharply since the Trump administration launched a war against Iran in February.
But the SSA is experimenting with the renewable diesel fuel R99 on its largest ferry Island Home. The SSA received its first shipment on August 29, which Amundsen said was delayed because of a freight train derailment in Worcester earlier in the month. Amundsen said last month that the ferry line is scheduled to restart the pilot program on Sept. 21.
The SSA purchased 200,000 gallons of the fuel for $165,000, and the test period will continue through Dec. 31.
