Study suggests MBTA float ferry service expansion
The MBTA should seriously weigh expanding its ferry service, where capital costs are low and service is the most reliable on the T system, according to a new report obtained by the Herald.
The report — to be released today by the rightleaning Pioneer Institute — is built on an analysis of more than 15 years of data that, its authors argue, shows the T actually spends far less running its ferry service than many of its other modes when factoring in capital and debt costs.
“The ferry service has really not been given the credit or attention that we think it’s due,” said Greg Sullivan, a former state inspector general and the report’s co-author who called water service in the harbor and to the burgeoning Seaport “really under-utilized.”
“Gov. (Charlie) Baker and the new leadership at the MBTA should consider this a real opportunity,” Sullivan said.
With 1.3 million trips a year, the T’s ferry service makes up less than 1 percent of the T’s total annual ridership, and at nearly $59 per mile to run, no transit mode at the T is more expensive to operate. But Sullivan and co-author Matthew Blackbourn say that cost doesn’t factor in that ferry service requires a small fraction of the capital costs that come with laying track, upgrading signals or buying new cars for rail service.
Fares alone also generate 68 cents for every dollar the T spends, the most of any mode the T runs. Ferries are also on time more often than subways, buses or trains, and expanding them — potentially through a private-public proposal — could help relieve congestion on roads and trains.
“It really does make sense to put all these pieces together,” said state Sen. Tom McGee, a Lynn Democrat who has pushed to add more ferry service to the North Shore city.