March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Boston-Yarmouth ferry

The Massachusetts Port Authority and a Canadian cruise line would raise the tide of tourism in Boston by instituting direct ferry service between that city and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Maine should respond aggressively to this proposal, which could jeopardize popular ferry runs between Yarmouth, and Portland and Bar Harbor.

In response to interest from RCK Cruise Lines of Nova Scotia, Massport is spending $10,000 on a survey of Nova Scotia and New England residents to determine whether there is demand for a link between Boston and Yarmouth.

If consumers are interested, the Nova Scotia group believes it can assemble investors to put up $17 million to put the line in operation, restoring a maritime connection that flourished early in the century, but which disappeared by 1958. The Boston-Yarmouth ferry, like rail passenger service and other forms of mass transit, was a victim of the development of the Interstate Highway System, which moved people and goods into private automobiles and onto trucks.

Massport would be delighted to see Canada’s tourist dollars flow around Maine and into Boston. But Canada should be careful. As an agency, Massport’s policies have been brutally self-interested. This state’s airline carriers learned how quickly Massport’s attitude and rules can change to help itself to the detriment of the out-of-state businesses that become dependent on it.

Maine and the Maritimes are working hard to develop an economic partnership.

This state should do a marketing survey of its own to determine the interest and impact of the Boston-Yarmouth route, and what would be lost if either the Portland or Bar Harbor ferries were casualties of competition. Such an examination would be instructive for the tourist industry and revealing to people in state government who establish the state’s economic development strategy.

It might help build a case to persuade Canadian interests to stick with the two lines that already serve New England and the Maritimes, possibly as an adjunct to passenger rail service.

Maine, which in its economic development efforts has a history of preoccupation with luring new businesses into the state, should not fall asleep on the beach while an existing industry — ferry service to two coastal communities and the economic stimulus that provides — is stranded by the tide shifting south.


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