After shooting "the Road Fairy," TxDOT loots the Bolivar ferry

Ferry lines may be history — for a fee

Proposal would give priority to those paying $250 or more per year

Jan. 29, 2006

By RAD SALLEE and KEVIN MORAN
Houston Chronicle
Copyright 2006

Motorists willing to pay $250 or more a year soon may be able to bypass the long lines that form in the hot sun during tourist season to wait for the Bolivar and Port Aransas ferries.

The Texas Transportation Commission had scheduled a vote last week on the proposed priority boarding lanes. The commission postponed voting on the measure until Feb. 23 after Bolivar Peninsula resident Darlene Leal pleaded that the proposed fees are too steep for many beach-loving retirees to afford.

The free ferries connect Bolivar Peninsula with Galveston Island and Padre Island with the mainland north of Corpus Christi.

Leal, spokeswoman for the Bolivar Ferry Access Project, a residents group, said the narrow peninsula with one road down the middle is home to fewer than 4,000 people.

One in four is retired, she said, and all are outnumbered by the visitors who arrive on weekends to play.

Texas Department of Transportation statistics show the Bolivar ferries carried an average 7,501 vehicles a day last July, the busiest month. TxDOT says long lines are a weekend and tourist season problem, and that 86 percent of the time there is no wait at all.

Leal asked the commission to reduce the proposed fee for cars to $125 or $150, but it already had been cut from a proposed $400, and TxDOT officials say that if the cost was too low, so many people would buy priority stickers that they would offer little advantage.

Residents want priority

The proposal calls for buses, motor homes and single-unit trucks with up to three axles to pay $500 (reduced from $600) and larger vehicles $1,000 (increased from $800).

Leal also asked for peninsula residents to get automatic priority. "There just has to be a way you can identify people who live there and let them in and out," she said. "Does everybody else have the right to go before you?"

But TxDOT attorney Richard Monroe said the agency has no authority to treat residents differently from visitors and probably would lose a lawsuit if it tried to.

Commission chairman Ric Williamson moved to delay the vote in an effort to obtain endorsements from local elected officials.

He also told TxDOT district engineer Gary Trietsch to "take a second look" at a long-proposed bridge that could replace the ferries.

But Trietsch said such a bridge would be costly at 2.5 miles long — twice the length of the Galveston Causeway — and at least 200 feet over the water so ships could pass under it. Construction would be 15 to 25 years away, he said.

Trietsch said the priority boarding setup would increase ferry waiting lanes from two to three on the Galveston side and from one to two on the peninsula, with one lane on each side for priority boarding.

Priority vehicles would be limited to half the space on each 70-car ferry, he said. TxDOT also will add a sixth ferry to the five now operating at Bolivar, Trietsch said.

Unlike Leal, Port Aransas Mayor Georgia Neblett had hoped the commission would approve the plan.

"We're looking forward to it," Neblett told the panel, because on a busy weekend the ferry traffic clogs the city's streets. "We'd put in more streets if we had room, but we're an island."

"We're not going to be able to satisfy both of you," Williamson said after being advised that separating the two projects could delay both. The panel is likely to approve the current proposal next month, he said.

Mixed reactions

While the commission was meeting, passengers on the Bolivar ferry Ray Stoker Jr. — named for a former transportation commission chairman — had mixed reactions to the priority boarding plan.

Dienst Distributing Co. president Stacy Dienst said he doesn't think his firm needs it at $500 per truck. The beer delivery trucks leave a mainland warehouse so early in the morning that drivers don't have to worry about lines, he said.

But many University of Texas Medical Branch employees live on the peninsula and commute daily.

Lifelong peninsula resident and UTMB senior secretary Janelle Brannan said she'd reluctantly buy a pass at $250 "just to keep from sitting in line during the summer."

"We have these kids who want to come over here and party and they don't care if they sit in lines for hours," she said. "We are at work all day long and ready to just go home and sometimes it's 7 p.m. before I get home." During the rest of the year, Brannan said, her evening wait is about 20 minutes and she gets home at about 6 p.m.

Vivian King was less enthusiastic about a fee. "We pay taxes and this is the only way we have to get to Galveston and shop and do other things," she said. "I think we should have priority without having to pay for it."

But fellow peninsula resident Guy Hailey, who rides the ferry two or three times a week, said he might buy a sticker.

"During the summertime, it's impossible to get from Bolivar to Galveston on the ferries," Hailey said. "It's just frustrating and sometimes you just end up not going."

rad.sallee@chron.com

kevin.moran@chron.com

© 2006 Houston Chronicle: www.chron.com