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?

Well, maybe that’s a misunderstanding, or a cautious estimate of the average passenger market, or just a typo. The important thing is that the new ferry concept is modest. And the development process, so far, has been deliberately collaborative (as between the Port of Cleveland and municipal officials in Ontario). Those two wonderful qualities were sorely missing in Version 1 of the Port’s ferry initiative.

Thank you, Mr. Friedman.

Now if this (100% publicly funded) effort could just become a little more transparent…

P.S. Speaking of the Lake Express, I just looked up their Summer 2011 fare schedule. Try to imagine a successful trial project that charges these amounts (including a “fuel surcharge” and a “security surcharge”) for a two and a half boat ride between Cleveland and Port Stanley, Ontario:

Can’t imagine it? Me neither.