Ferries

views updated

FERRIES

FERRIES were used to cross all large streams in colonial days and were only gradually replaced by bridges and, in some instances, tunnels. Where automobile traffic problems grew acute, however, some ferries were brought back into service. The island position of Manhattan necessitated ferry connections with Staten Island, Long Island, and the west bank of the Hudson. The Brooklyn Bridge and subsequent bridges obviated the ferries to Long Island. However, by the end of the twentieth century, the Staten Island ferries continued to provide a vital link to Manhattan for the community while private ferries from Fort Lee and other points in New Jersey alleviated road traffic congestion.

The ferry played a similar and important role in Boston Harbor; Hampton Roads, Virginia; and across the Delaware between Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey. All of these operations were ultimately displaced by

bridges and tunnels. In the West, ferries persisted between San Francisco and the East Bay well after construction of the Bay Bridge as an adjunct of rail service out of Oakland. The Golden Gate Ferry System continues to provide an alternative to traffic congestion for thousands of commuters from Marin County and elsewhere.

The country's largest public ferry system is found in Puget Sound, Washington. The Washington State Ferries, purchased from private operators and consolidated into a single system in 1951, carry 17 million passengers a year to and from Seattle, other points on the sound, and Vancouver Island.

As an adjunct of railroad services, ferries had an important role across Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario; the Straits of Mackinac; the lower Mississippi River; the Detroit River; and Suisun Bay. Lake Michigan ferries provided a shipping route between Michigan and Wisconsin that avoided the Chicago rail terminals. By the mid-twentieth century, the vessels were old, required large crews, and had seen their capacity fall as the average rail car increased in length. Hence, the service, once a profitable extension of the trans-Michigan rail lines, had become a source of large and increasing losses, and it was dismantled in the 1970s.

The rise of tourism along America's coastlines, however, has brought a new demand for excursion ferries. In the 1980s, entrepreneurs refitted the Pere Marquette Railroad's cargo ship City of Midland for passenger traffic and resurrected the old lumber route between Ludington, Michigan, and Wisconsin as a popular tourist attraction. Fast tourist ferries, in the form of hydrofoil or hovercraft rather than the conventional ferryboat, link mainland towns with outlying islands. The Port Judith to Block Island ferry in Rhode Island, for example, has expanded as tourism on that island has increased.