Some Are Skeptical About Peconic Jitney Proposal In Sag Harbor

With the Sag Harbor Village Board preparing to hold a hearing next month on a local law that would allow passenger ferries to dock at Long Wharf — a move that would clear the way for a subsidiary of the Hampton Jitney to launch a seasonal service between the village and Greenport — doubts about the idea are being raised.

Some question whether Long Wharf, which the village recently spent $4.3 million renovating, making it more pedestrian friendly in the process, is the best place to dock a ferry that is operated by a private company. Others say a passenger ferry will bring more cars, which will take up valuable parking spaces, or draw a steady stream of Uber cars into the heart of a village that is already congested with summertime traffic.

Still others question whether the service will bring patrons ready to spend money in village shops and restaurants, or just families looking for a cheap afternoon outing.

Suffolk County has already approved a five-year license that will allow the Peconic Jitney to bring back on a permanent basis a service that was tried out as a pilot in 2012. When the ferry ran that summer, about 18,500 people used it, about 50 percent more people than were expected.

The Jitney initially proposed resuming the service in 2020, but those plans were scuttled by COVID-19.

Among those with objections is Ed Hollander, the landscape architect who designed the revamped Long Wharf, adding pedestrian benches and planters to create a more parklike setting.

“I don’t think taking what is now the nicest public space in the village and giving it to our friends at the Hampton Jitney is the best use of it,” Hollander said.

He said he could foresee a traffic tie-up at the foot of Long Wharf as taxis and Ubers arrive to pick up and drop off ferry passengers that would rival “the approach to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.”

If the village is set on bringing in a passenger ferry, it should find a better location, he added, suggesting that Havens Beach, which has an ample place to park cars, would be a better location to build a fixed dock to serve a ferry.

He acknowledged that such a proposal would likely bring an outcry of objections itself. “I’m not saying it’s a good idea,” he said. “I’m saying it’s a better idea.”

Trustee Aidan Corish has also expressed misgivings about the Jitney’s proposal, which calls for seven trips a day.

“I’m not against a ferry. We are a waterfront community. Would it be a great idea to connect us all along the water? Absolutely,” he said. “But it’s important to realize that all of a sudden we are being asked to accommodate a ferry without knowing the details. I think we need to take a holistic view, rather than just reacting.”

Like Hollander, Corish said Long Wharf has been transformed from a working pier to “an urban park” that was designed for the quiet enjoyment of village residents.

“This is not 2012,” he added. “When it was renovated, the wharf was not designed to accommodate a ferry.”

Corish said as a village official he was most concerned with the health and safety of village residents and ferry passengers, questioning whether there would be sufficient space to drop a gangplank from the ferry to allow passengers to board or disembark, whether there would be sufficient lighting after dark, and whether it would be handicapped accessible, among other concerns.

He said parking could pose problems as well.

“There are very few things in the village, other than the theater, where 50 people show up at the same time,” Corish said. “When a restaurant opens, we force it to provide parking. And now we’re about to introduce an event taking place every two hours that might require 25 to 30 spaces each time.”

Mayor Jim Larocca said he believed the village would be able to address many concerns as part of the special exception permit process and could nip others in the bud if they arose. “I can’t prove a negative,” he said. “But we will learn quickly and act as needed.”

Larocca said he did not foresee a rise in Ubers or taxis, nor did he expect people to use the ferry to pass through the village on their way to other destinations.

He said the ferry would likely bring a boost to local businesses. Plus, he said, it’s a maritime business, and the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, a village planning document, encourages such uses.

When the ferry was discussed briefly by the Village Board last week as it set a May 10 date for the hearing on whether to allow ferries to use Long Wharf, Nada Berry, an owner of the Wharf Shop, said it would be a boon for business.

But Hilary Loomis, a director of Save Sag Harbor, questioned whether it would be good for the village in general.

This week, in an interview along with fellow director Bob Weinstein, she repeated her concerns.

“Who is really benefiting from this?” Loomis asked. “When they allow big yachts to come in, they at least pay a big dockage fee. Now we are talking about a commercial enterprise, and no fee is being discussed.”

Plus, she added, Long Wharf has been transformed since 2012. “What’s supposed to be an aesthetic, peaceful place is going to be very different with a ferry there,” she said.

Weinstein stressed that Save Sag Harbor did not want to be misunderstood as simply having a negative knee-jerk reaction. “All of us can imagine taking the ferry to Greenport once or twice,” he said. “But compare that to seven times a day. The bottom line is, there’s a lot none of us know in the village, and we are being asked to show support or opposition to something we don’t know anything about.”

Jim Ryan, the general manager of the Peconic Jitney, said on Tuesday that with the county approval in hand and an agreement to dock at Claudio’s dock in Greenport, the Jitney was only waiting for Sag Harbor’s approval.

He said many of the concerns residents have raised will be answered if the company is allowed to present its case. For starters, he said, the company would offer incentives for passengers to use RoveLoop, which provides low-cost transportation in and around the village, and other ride services to reduce the number of cars coming into the village and taking up valuable parking spaces. Plus, he said the Jitney would have those companies drop off and pick up passengers at its two bus stops on Main Street in front of the firehouse and the Sag Harbor Cinema to avoid congestion at the wharf.

The Peconic Jitney will work with partner restaurants and other businesses to encourage ferry passengers to use them, and he said the company would pay a dockage fee, just as the big yachts that tie up at the wharf for months at a time do. Some of those vessels pay in excess of $100,000 per year to the village.

The village charges $8 per foot with a minimum of 100 feet for the yachts that dock at Long Wharf, said Bob Bori, the village dockmaster. Although Ryan said the Jitney was prepared to pay a full 24-hour fee but only be in port about an hour and a half each day, Bori said he did not know if a fee had been discussed.

Ryan added that East End communities supported the idea of such ferry service when they adopted the Sustainable East End Development Strategies, or SEEDS plan, more than a decade ago, and it was time for them to act on that commitment. “Our goal is to take cars off the road and turn our parking lots into parks someday,” he said.