Automobile and passenger traffic on Steamship Authority ferries plunged into steep decline this month, just as the coronavirus pandemic began its spread into Massachusetts.
Summer vehicle traffic numbers from the Steamship Authority are on track to match last year’s record-breaking figures, and backups continue to snarl Island roads in July and August.
The Island may be busier this summer, if advance reservations on the Steamship Authority are an indication.
Reservations for vehicle passage from Woods Hole to the Vineyard are up 3.5 per cent over last year, and bookings in the other direction are up 4.6 per cent, according to data collected by the Steamship Authority at the end of April.
April Steamship Authority traffic was down slightly from the same period last year, though summer numbers are showing improvement.
At the Steamship Authority board of governors meeting Tuesday in Nantucket, general manager Wayne Lamson said April passenger traffic was down 3.3 per cent from April 2012.
As the Island starts to transition from summer crowds to autumn quiet, the Steamship Authority is reporting that traffic was up compared with last year.
“The summer was good; the traffic has been good,” Steamship Authority general manager Wayne Lamson told the Gazette this week.
June passenger traffic to the Vineyard was up by 4.7 per cent; July passenger traffic saw a decrease of 1.9 per cent; and August traffic was up by 7.2 per cent compared with 2011, according to Steamship Authority data. Passenger traffic is up 4.6 per cent for the year to date.
Overall traffic on Steamship Authority ferries is either flat or down slightly for the year, but in fact peak-season summer traffic on ferries to the Vineyard - both passenger and automobile traffic - has been healthy.
Also, the patchwork of parking lots in Falmouth and Bourne that are used to service boat line ferries to the Vineyard were never completely filled this summer, raising some question about the recent statements by the boat line general manager about the need to shift passenger traffic to New Bedford.
Traffic was down, but parking tickets were up. The weather was changeable; ditto for the restaurant and retail business. The wild blueberries were not so hot, but the fishing was great - lots of big bass and small bluefish, and on the full moon in July the fluke were so thick in some places you could practically throw out an old shoe and catch one.
These are the benchmarks of the summer of 2003, and as the official summer season came to a close this week, the people of the Vineyard took a quick look back, and most could agree on two things:
Fewer passengers rode the Steamship Authority ferries last year, continuing a trend under way since the turn of the millennium.
The boat line, which provides the only year-round passenger and vehicle service to the Islands, carried 2,609,835 passengers last year, off 63,324 or 2.4 per cent from 2004.
Passenger traffic on the Vineyard route fell 3.1 percent.
"This is the third year we've been down three per cent," Vineyard SSA governor Marc Hanover said yesterday. "There are more people living here, fewer people visiting."
