Keep An Open Mind

Living on the East End, a car is an unfortunate necessity, except for short jaunts for those who live near hamlet and village centers, where precious few bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly walkways have popped up over the years, though they are still woefully lacking in some communities.

Transportation, in fact, is a major infrastructure issue across the region — many downtown areas, especially in villages like Sag Harbor, bemoan a lack of parking. The county bus service is supposed to be improving for the better in a new plan to revamp the service, serve a greater population and provide a more efficient option for commuters. Initiatives like the South Fork Commuter Connection show promise, though it has struggled, like many things, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, while hopper services from downtown areas to beaches have had some success.

In general, it seems like officials on the East End are constantly looking at ways to take cars off our congested roadways — especially in the summer months.

In 2012, the Peconic Jitney launched a pilot program to test the viability of a ferry service — largely for recreation and leisure purposes — between Sag Harbor and Greenport. Ferry services have long been discouraged on the South Fork: The Town of East Hampton successfully fought to uphold its own ban on vehicle and high-speed ferries, with the U.S. Supreme Court choosing not to hear an appeal fighting that town law in 2011. But what was proposed as a pilot in 2012 by the Hampton Jitney was designed to take cars off the roads — a passenger ferry that would deliver riders to downtown centers without their cars.

In Sag Harbor, the immediate concern was parking, as is often the case whenever something new is suggested. Organizers behind the ferry service contracted with the school district to provide a shuttle service that largely went unused, and despite the estimated average of 19 passengers per ferry voyage, the parking woes the ferry service were feared to create didn’t really materialize. With hourly parking restrictions in place, and enforced, passengers to Greenport were either dropped off on Long Wharf or parked outside of the immediate downtown, where longer-term parking is often available, even during the busy summer months.

The Peconic Jitney hoped to make a return to Sag Harbor just as COVID-19 exploded in the United States. Backers finally went before the Sag Harbor Village Board on Tuesday night and are in talks with Greenport Village to revive the service this summer, which, at $37 per round trip, is not inexpensive but also not cost prohibitive for a family, compared to gas and vehicle ferry service driving between the two forks.

It’s imperative that villages and towns ensure quality of life issues are addressed when considering a service like the Peconic Jitney, but in this case, we have experienced a pilot season already — and its major downfall was not its impact on the community hubs it connected but rather its inability, at that time, to draw the kind of ridership it needed to sustain the service.

As waterfront communities, it is worth keeping an open mind about the benefits of services like the Peconic Jitney, even as we necessarily explore its downsides. For many in the region, travel by boat is a luxury experience, reserved for only a few.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be.