As summer traffic season nears, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council is asking the question that everyone else is thinking: Is there any way to ease some of the congestion on the most traveled routes on the East End? As it turns out, the council has some ideas, and they include expanding ferry service.
During a February meeting, members of the council unveiled plans to study the feasibility of a passenger ferry service that would operate between Riverhead, North Sea, Sag Harbor, Greenport, Orient, and Montauk.
The study seeks to offer alternatives to driving on busy roads like County Road 39 in Southampton that are often clogged with traffic from the so-called trade parade as well as seasonal vacation traffic.
Sag Harbor Mayor Thomas Gardella said that while it wouldn’t be the first time something like this was proposed for Sag Harbor, it would be a first for a larger, Peconic Bay-wide program. In 2012 the Peconic Jitney — a subsidiary of the Hampton Jitney — piloted a program offering ferry shuttle service between Sag Harbor and Greenport. Although the effort was suspended due to lack of federal and state funding, the mayor called it a success from his perspective.
“Locals used it,” he said last week. Although he had not yet dug into the most recent ferry service proposal, he said the village board would likely “get behind it.”
In 2022, the village approved a new plan for the Jitney ferry that would allow a ferry to dock and load and unload passengers on Long Wharf. At that time, Peconic Jitney was also looking to secure grants.
Any new plans, the mayor said, would have to be reviewed by the village and the public and be in compliance with dockage requirements. As for a car ferry, the mayor said it was a non-starter. The village does not have the infrastructure to support anything other than a passenger ferry, he said.
Back in 2020, Jim Ryan, a manager at the Hampton Jitney, predicted that a plan of this nature could be coming to the East End. He told The Star, “Riverhead would be a great spot, because coming from here, it’s hard to get to by car, but if there were a ferry, so many more people would see all the great things they’re doing in downtown Riverhead.”
“You could increase the service as the demand increases. I would hope to have at least three ferries to do this service between Greenport and Sag Harbor, then maybe down the road, we’d say, ‘Let’s go to Montauk,’ and we’d have a ferry go there and back, which would be great.”
For now, the transportation council says it will start with a feasibility study, which it said would be complete in 2028.
