Scrap new Wolfe Island ferry schedule: residents
Round trips will now take 80 minutes instead of 60
The new Wolfe Islander IV ferry is to enter full service on Saturday, but many island residents are not happy with the planned schedule.
The ferry is to operate on an 80-minute round trip schedule, something island residents fear will make commuting times and paramedic responses from the mainland take longer.
Current service with the Wolfe Islander III is a 60-minute round trip schedule.
In a letter to Transportation Minister Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria, island resident Jessica L. Kish wrote that the planned 80-minute round trip schedule would have social and economic impacts on the island community.
“We live on Wolfe Island because it is a convenient 20-minute ferry ride from Kingston that operates hourly. Services should be improving, not declining,” Kish wrote.
“At this point, I would much rather maintain the hourly schedule and the 20-minute voyage that the Wolfe Islander III operates on.”
Kish said that, even though the new ferry was larger, fewer trips per day would translate to about 300 fewer vehicles being transported.
But the inconvenience is not as critical as having prompt access to paramedics in the time of emergency, she added.
“In an agricultural community, accidents happen,” she wrote. “We also have a predominantly aging demographic on the island which appears to produce a high volume of emergency calls. In recent years many parents have moved off-island choosing the mainland because of the unpredictability and unreliability of the ferry service and lack of emergency services.
“When there is an emergency on Wolfe Island firefighters are our first responders who attend while the ferry travels to Kingston to bring paramedics to Wolfe Island,” she added. “This causes delays in attending to emergencies and necessitates the ferry service being paused often for hours at a time, leaving residents and tourists stranded on either side of the water on the mainland and the island. Typically, the ferry can make it to Kingston in 15 or 20 minutes; however, the announcement of a 40-minute commute each way will likely translate to a minimum of a 90-minute wait for paramedics to arrive on the scene.”
Frontenac Islands Mayor Judy Greenwood-speers applauded Kish's letter.
“When the proposed 80-to-90minute schedule was raised, I said sink, sell it or scrap it,” Greenwood-speers wrote in an open letter. “It is inferior service that is being offered and killing especially working and young families who commute and agriculture and other businesses that rely on delivery services including potable water and septic pump outs.”
In his own letter, Kingston and the Islands MPP Ted Hsu called on Sarkaria to commit the new ferry to a 60-minute round trip schedule once the dock and charging facilities are installed and operational.
“I do understand that this 80-minute turnaround is necessary, albeit temporarily, because of two main reasons,” Hsu wrote. “The first is that the charging infrastructure must be built and, until then, the WI IV must run slower to avoid excessive battery depletion. The second is that the Cavotec auto-mooring systems must be built, both in Marysville and Kingston. Manual mooring slows down the ferry. I understand it may take two years to complete both installations.”
Hsu called on the government to fund paramedic service on the island at least until the 60-minute round trip schedule is in place.
Earlier this week, the MTO announced that the Wolfe Islander IV would be docking at the newly rebuilt terminal in Marysville instead of at the winter dock at Dawson Point.
“Docking in Marysville will not only benefit local businesses but also contribute to a more vibrant community by connecting the heart of the community directly with the ferry,” stated a ministry spokesperson. “Dawson Point dock will be maintained and used as a backup to the Marysville dock.”