The disappearance of pay phones around the Island has raised public safety concerns in Tisbury and Edgartown.

In Tisbury, town officials pay a monthly fee to keep a pay phone working at the somewhat remote Park and Ride parking lot near the town water tower.

When the pay phone was removed from in front of the Edgartown police station this fall, officers inside had to rethink the way the public reaches the police after hours, when no one is at the station.

On Chappaquiddick there once was a pay phone at the Chappy ferry shack, and now it is gone. Other pay phones are disappearing across the Vineyard.

The pay phone industry is slipping because of a lack of customers. The reason is of course cell phones. But cell phones don’t always work and their ubiquitous appearance may be deceiving.

“Not everyone has a cell phone,” said Aase M. Jones, assistant to Tisbury town administrator John Bugbee. She said when Verizon was planning to shut down the phone at the top of the hill at the Park and Ride, town selectmen made the decision to pay $85 a month to keep it.

“They used to pay us to allow them to install pay phones. We got a commission,” Ms. Jones said. But those days are long over. Now the telephone company charges towns and businesses for non-income producing pay phones when they can.

Ms. Jones has a file with letters from Verizon describing the plan to remove unprofitable pay phones. When Verizon wrote to Edgartown in February of 2002 with its plan to remove the pay phone from in front of the police station, police chief Paul V. Condlin responded quickly with a letter asking the company to reconsider. He said the station is not manned 24 hours a day.

“It is my belief that removing the pay phone from outside our station could delay or hinder a citizen from reporting an emergency or requesting medical assistance,” the chief wrote.

But this fall, the pay phone was removed. “One day, we realized that the phone was gone,” said Lieut. Tony Bettencourt. “They took the phone off the pedestal and then they took the whole pedestal.”

Now the police department, in conjunction with the fire department, has purchased a $600 emergency phone which will be located alongside the station. The phone can make only one call, to the county communications center.

On Chappaquiddick there is now a way to call for help even though the pay phone was removed from the ferry house. Fire chief Peter Shemeth said the new Chappaquiddick fire station has an emergency call box outside. The bright yellow phone connects to the communications center

In Oak Bluffs pay phones are also disappearing, though the issue has not yet raised any public safety concerns.

Travis Larsen, information technology specialist for the town, said the Oak Bluffs police station has an emergency phone that is available when the station is closed. “We had a number of pay phones that produced income for the town,” he said, adding: “No one was using them and [when there was a shift to charging the town for the phone] it was costing the town money. Everyone has a cell phone and some people have two. We are in the process of trying to reduce our telecommunications costs.”

Bill Kula, a spokesman for Verizon, commented on the decline in use of pay phones on the Vineyard and around the country. “In the year 2000 there were over two million pay phones in operation in the country. Today it has dropped to well under 900,000,” he said, adding: “On the Vineyard, we have 70 per cent of all the Verizon pay phones still in operation in Edgartown and Vineyard Haven and they are located in high-traffic areas, as well as some in less traveled areas.”

He said in order for a pay phone to remain in place it has to make at least 150 calls per month. Phones that don’t meet the requirement will likely be removed, though Mr. Kula said his company tries to work with businesses and towns to keep phones that are considered essential. The Tisbury Park and Ride phone is a good example, he said.

Changing use of pay phones is apparent at Tony’s Market in Oak Bluffs, where owner Dave Richardson recalled the popularity of the pay phone when he purchased his store in 1992. “The pay phone was there and it was used a lot. People would come into the store to complain when it was on the fritz,” he said. It didn’t take long to figure out the phone stopped working when it was overburdened with coins. From then on, Mr. Richardson said every time there was a problem with the phone, he would call the phone company and tell them to collect the coins.

The pay phone outside was ideal for another reason. “We had a phone system in the store and when the electricity went off, as it did three or four times a year, we would have no phone service. We would get a dime or a quarter and we’d use the pay phone,” Mr. Richardson said. In those early years, the store also got a commission on the pay phone use.

“Early in 2000, we got a form letter from Verizon saying: ‘We are sorry there will be no commissions,’ ” Mr. Richardson said.

He said they decided to let the phone stay anyway as a public service. “My customers appreciate it,” Mr. Richardson said. He added:

“When I was growing up every drug store had a soda fountain. You would no sooner find a soda fountain in a drugstore today as find a gold coin.”

But pay phone service is not extinct. Jason Russo of Payphone.com said his Texas company is doing well, even though the number of pay phones across the country and in the world is dropping.

His firm sells new and refurbished pay phones. There is paperwork involved for the entrepreneur, but it can be done. “It may be declining for the big bells, but for us we are selling the equipment. It is an opportunity,” he said.