Land, Air And Water

Sag Harbor Village has found itself at a literal crossroads — in three dimensions.

As Blade, and other seaplane services, eye the village as an alternative to East Hampton Airport should the town succeed in restricting helicopter flights from Manhattan, and with the Hampton Jitney asking the village to serve as a waterfront hub for its proposed summer passenger ferry service to Greenport, the village has a lot of potential transportation headaches, besides the backed-up traffic in all directions, coming its way this summer.

It’s time for the village to slow down and do due diligence.

On Tuesday, June 14, the Village Board will hold a public hearing and potentially vote on the Hampton Jitney’s proposed Peconic Jitney ferry, which at the outset is expected to make a half dozen daily round-trips between Sag Harbor and Greenport, using newly refurbished Long Wharf as its dock.

On its face, the ferry service, which ran as a pilot program a decade ago, could offer those without a boat an opportunity to get out on the water and travel between the forks without using their cars. But much has changed in 10 years. Without updated studies — a look at the current environment, including the impact of rideshare services, parking, new traffic patterns and how dockage will affect the pedestrian gathering area that has been created on Long Wharf — it is hard to understand how village officials can sign off on this proposal. To rely on parking data from 2012 in a village that has only seen traffic and parking problems increase is shortsighted at best.

Evidently, Jitney officials are confident this approval of a five-year plan is going to take place — they ran an invitation-only chartered cruise just 10 days before the upcoming scheduled hearing, irking some residents and Village Board members.

If the board is going to approve the ferry service, it should do so only on a one-year trial basis, so that it can collect the new data it needs to judge the impact of the service. At the same time, the village should look at other locations, besides Long Wharf, where this new commercial venture might operate. Perhaps the village could persuade the Jitney to help fund the construction of a ferry landing off the transient dock west of Long Wharf?

The village is also potentially at the mercy of Blade and other commercial seaplane services that see it as one of several attractive alternatives to East Hampton Airport. For now, it appears there is not much the village can do to control planes that land outside its jurisdiction. But that doesn’t mean the village shouldn’t monitor the situation closely and revisit its waterways law if the number of planes using the bay multiply.

Among other things, the village could ban seaplanes from taxiing within its 4,000-foot jurisdiction, not allow landing platforms to be moored in village waters, and prohibit its licensed launch service provider from serving seaplanes. That may not be enough to solve the problem completely, but it would send a clear message to Blade and other seaplane services that the village is unwilling to serve as a pawn in their battle with East Hampton Town.