Summer ferry schedule extended for Islesboro

ISLESBORO – The Maine State Ferry Service, at the request of the island Board of Selectmen, has extended the summer schedule of daily ferry trips to include March and November.

Starting March 17, nine round trips will be made Monday through Friday between Islesboro and the mainland. The full summer schedule takes effect April 12 for seven days a week until Oct. 4, when the nine-trip Monday through Friday schedule will go back into effect until Nov. 28.

The summer schedule in recent years has begun in mid-April and ended Columbus Day weekend in October. In spring the ferry goes out of service for annual inspections and maintenance and a smaller ferry covers the Islesboro run. A summer schedule then handles routine traffic.

The two additional trips Monday through Friday will accommodate only commercial traffic, according to Ferry Service Manager Jim McCloud, based in Rockland.

Islesboro selectmen made the request last month in response to the ferry service’s annual call for islands to submit requests for changes in schedules.

When the question arose in December, Selectman Andrew Anderson asked the board to consider the change in light of truckers’ complaints that too many trucks were being left behind, particularly on the mainland leg. The complaints surfaced at state Department of Transportation meetings held in Rockland.

Island truckers typically leave on the 7:30 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. trips, and get in line in Lincolnville to return on the 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. boats. The turn-around enables them to make two trips a day. Truckers forced to wait in Lincolnville until 1 p.m. lose hours of pay, and cannot make a second trip.

“You can’t charge enough for gravel to pay for that lost time. And now the cost of fuel’s so high, too,” said trucker Paul Hatch.

The issue came up because of one captain’s conservative boat-loading practices, which often left trucks behind on both sides. Truckers called DOT and state Rep. Robert Walker, R-Lincolnville, who convened the first meeting more than a year ago with Ron Roy of DOT’s Office of Passenger Transportation, Transportation Commissioner David Cole and the truckers.

An extended schedule was one suggestion voiced at a November meeting in Rockland attended by McCloud and island and mainland truckers. A December meeting on Islesboro with the captain, island truckers, selectmen and McCloud resolved the boat loading problem.

“The biggest issue for me was the ferry crew,” McCloud said.

The crew normally works one 80-hour week then has a week off. “In winter they actually work 68 hours but are paid for 80, so there is no increased personnel costs,” McCloud said. Personnel accounts for 70 percent of the ferry service costs, McCloud said.

“The only additional cost is fuel,” he said, estimating that half a boatload would generate enough income to offset the cost of fuel for the extra runs. “At worst, we would break even.”

Fifty percent of the ferry service costs are met by ferry fares, and 50 percent from highway funds. Additional runs generate additional revenue to the taxpayers’ benefit, McCloud said.

Truckers say their boat-loading needs have been accommodated.

“It’s been really, really good ever since” the recent meetings, Hatch said.

Phil Berry of Leach’s Express said, “It’s a thousand percent better.”

Even so, Hatch observed that since the December meeting, he has had a truck left behind on the mainland once a week on average, “just because of the amount of traffic at Christmas.”

“It [was] high time we looked at increasing the summer schedule,” McCloud said. “Commercial traffic has really increased to the island, especially in the shoulder seasons. One of our missions is to support and foster commerce.”