If you use the Chappy Ferry regularly, you are aware that various vehicles don’t wait in the vehicle waiting line but rather get to “cut the line.”

The list of vehicles allowed to take advantage of the cut line has evolved over the past half century. It wasn’t until the regular vehicle waiting line was moved from Dock street over onto Daggett street in the late ‘70s that the cut line began growing. Prior to that, there was no room for a cut line on Dock street. Here is an explanation of why some vehicles get to cut.

Some cut line users are there by community request because companies such as UPS, FedEx Ground and FedEx Air were not willing to service Chappy because of the time involved in getting over and back. A group of people on Chappy petitioned the town to let them skip the waiting line both ways. Prior to that, boxes and envelopes were left in the ferry house. In the spring and fall, you could hardly get in the door for the crush of seasonal packages.

The fuel trucks were singled out because they have to travel alone because of their hazardous cargo. If they came down Daggett street, which is not wide enough for vehicles to safely pass, often the ferry would leave with a single car on board and return to carry just the fuel truck. Two trips with one vehicle per trip seemed like an avoidable situation. Fuel trucks only cut from town.

Concrete trucks waiting in line must leave their diesel engines running to keep the aggregate mixed. To spare the folks living on Simpson’s Lane from the exhaust fumes, those trucks were told to queue up on Dock Street. Concrete trucks cut from town and only from Chappy if racing with the tide to fetch another load.

The school bus and U.S. Mail were the very first vehicles to cut the line. This was in the early ‘60s when Mildred Arnold, driving her big station wagon with a rear-facing third row seat, drove the Chappy kids to school and delivered the mail. She would butt in front of anyone waiting in line. Back then, there were, at most, three cars in line. She was always in a hurry and the On Time and the City of Chappaquiddick, both two-car ferries, were single-ended and turned around each trip. That took some time. And no one was up to challenging Mildred or making her late.