The Canada ferry: Time for some public discussion

Now that the Port of Cleveland and its Canadian partner, Central Elgin, have a couple of ferry proposals in hand and are “developing an evaluation process and reviewing the proposals and the business cases they make”, maybe it’s time to inform that evaluation process with some public discussion of what this project is supposed to accomplish. On this side of the lake, I mean.

The 13,000 constituents of Central Elgin, the Ontario municipality that includes Port Stanley and now owns the harbor there, have had many opportunities — including a municipal election last year — to define the principles now being followed by its municipal officials: Port Stanley harbor under municipal ownership is for tourism and small fishing, not shipping. Paying for regular dredging costs too much. So passengers, especially tourists, are good. Shallow-draft vessels are good. Trucks are unacceptable. These are the non-negotiable conditions that Central Elgin baked into its agreement with Cleveland and their joint Request for Expressions of Interest from prospective ferry operators.

Ferry plan: 50 cars and 75 people?

I missed this May 12 story in the London (ON) Free Press:

Officials from Cleveland promoting a ferry across Lake Erie will visit Port Stanley next month for a tire-kicking exercise with its potential partner.

Central Elgin Mayor Bill Walters said the port will play host to the American delegation the same way Cleveland welcomed Central Elgin representatives in April….

“There is nothing going to happen this year,” Walters said in reference to a trial run. “There is a lot of work that has to be done in order to accommodate even a pilot project of this size.”

Primarily a passenger service, the proposed ferry would carry 75 people, 50 cars and potentially tour buses and trucks. It would dock in Cleveland alongside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and mere steps from Cleveland Browns Stadium and a couple of blocks from Progressive Field, home of the Cleveland Indians.

An original proposal to carry mainly truck traffic morphed into the new plan because of widely expressed opposition in the village to truck traffic and congestion.

Will Friedman, chief executive of the Cleveland port, conceded earlier the notion of the ferry is to be centred around passengers and tourism.

Okay, now, that’s a little strange. It takes a fairly big boat to carry fifty cars and “potentially” some buses. The Lake Express, the Milwaukee-to-Muskegon fast ferry that’s been touted as a possible model by Friedman’s ferry consultant HMS Global,  has a whole vehicle deck for 46 cars and ten motorcycles — along with a passenger deck for up to 248 people. What kind of vessel would only have room for 75?