Steamship Authority rates will remain unchanged next year, according to a preliminary $123 million operating budget reviewed Thursday by the boat line board of governors.
“We are not asking for any rate adjustments for the 2022 budget. It gives me great pleasure to say that, I can assure you,” treasurer/comptroller Mark Rozum told the governors at their monthly online meeting.
Mr. Rozum is projecting a 2022 operating gain of $9.1 million, he said during his presentation, which included slides that are available on the boat line website.
The draft budget assumes 2022 operating revenues of $123.7 million against operating expenses of $116 million, with other income totaling $8.6 million and other expenses $3.5 million.
The largest changes in operating expenses are expected to come in fuel oil, payroll, pension and benefits and maintenance.
“We will be dry docking five vessels next year, for a total of just over $5 million,” assistant treasurer Courtney Oliveira said.
The budget also projects that passenger revenue will continue to decline, as it has in 2021 and 2020, while freight, automobile and parking revenue is expected to increase.
Among other business Thursday, the boat line board splintered in approving the 2022 summer and fall operating schedules, amid ongoing tensions with Falmouth residents over traffic and noise on the Woods Hole Road, especially from trucks.
Falmouth governor Kathryn Wilson voted nay, after getting no board support for her request to drop the 5:30 a.m. freight boat that carries smaller commercial trucks from Woods Hole — a longstanding bone of contention for village residents.
But as part of their vote on the schedule, the remaining board members also directed senior managers to investigate the potential for licensed freight services between the Vineyard and New Bedford, or another off-Cape port, by developing a request for proposals.
The New Bedford freight option has been studied more than once, most recently in 2016. A study by a maritime consultant that year found the existing infrastructure in the Whaling City would need millions of dollars of work to be feasible for a freight ferry terminal.
“But several years have passed since that . . . report was done, and now maybe an operator . . . may be eager to investigate and provide that service,” Mr. Davis told the board.
As approved by the board Thursday, the request for proposals will be crafted by the boat line’s long range task force, an advisory group that includes representatives living in SSA ports.
Barnstable governor Robert Jones was pessimistic about New Bedford’s prospects as a solution to the traffic woes of Cape residents.
“You can’t shrink the distance, therefore you can’t shrink the prices to go from New Bedford to the Island,” he said. “Economically, you can’t do it . . . without a subsidy.”
Additionally, truck drivers will not want to give up more than four hours of their day to make the round trip, Mr. Jones said. “It will limit their driving times.”
Complaints about boat line traffic have begun to wear thin for Vineyard governor James Malkin, who complained that continuing pressure from Falmouth residents has become uncivil.
“It’s certainly bitter and . . . a very aggressive posture against the Steamship Authority,” Mr. Malkin said, before emphasizing what the Island and Cape communities have in common.
“We’re all dealing with issues of growth,” Mr. Malkin said. “We’re all dealing with congestion.”
Both Woods Hole and Vineyard Haven are commercial ports with long-established industries, he continued, and both have long hills for trucks to climb.
“I recognize the concerns of Woods Hole. They’re mirrored in Vineyard Haven,” Mr. Malkin said.
Also Tuesday, the board agreed to allow Plymouth & Brockton Street Railway Co. to increase its stops at the Woods Hole terminal for the remainder of the year, from six round trips a day to either T.F. Green Airport or Logan via Boston to eight round trips, all but one on the Boston-Logan route.
Noting that the bus line’s request was dated Sept. 7, Mr. Davis additionally received board approval for the general manager to handle such requests in future.
