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The Lincolnville to Islesboro ferry ride is short — about 15 minutes, running every hour. But on both sides of the trip passengers are stuck waiting in line, and it can take hours to get their cars onto the boat — or even longer when there are delays.
And then they have to repeat the process at the end of the day — getting in line early in hopes of not missing the final boat.
“And since the terminal is too small for how many people try to come out here and the schedule is very limited and if you try to work out here it’s a whole other beast,” said Eben Larner, who works in home improvement.
He was one of the workers waiting to board the 3:30 p.m. ferry back to Lincolnville — the second to last trip of the day. He watched anxiously to see if his truck, driven by a co-worker, made it onto the boat. He said the added commute time, frequent delays and canceled trips cut into his hours.
“We’ll do work in Portland and you got the restriction of a two-hour commute on each side so you only get four hours, but you have a whole other stress doing it here because you got to try to make sure you get to the boat on time,” Larner said.
Those delays and cancellations are often tied to staffing.
“And if you’re missing one person, the vessels can’t run,” ferry captain Kevin Hopkins said.
He said the Coast Guard requires a certain number of crew on board depending on its size.
“So it’s not like, you know, the guys working on the roads or somebody in that office, if somebody’s not there, the other people can keep working, a boat needs a full complement to run,” Hopkins said.
Although ferry crews typically work a week-on, week-off schedule, Hopkins said many are working on their weeks off, filling in on other routes.
Paul Merrill, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Transportation, said officials at the ferry service understand the complaints they are hearing from riders.
“But when our staffing challenges become acute, they result in sometimes canceled ferry runs,” Merrill said. “And we know that that’s disruptive to people who rely on the service to get home or to work or to school or to a doctor’s appointment.”
He said staffing is a challenge in many industries, and the Mills administration has worked to raise wages in recent years. But he said ferry service is a challenge, because 50 percent of its funding comes from passenger fees.
“We also are aware that any other changes we make would have impacts on both the ferry ratepayers and taxpayers statewide, because of the way the ferry service is funded,” Merrill said.
The Vinalhaven-Rockland route has faced the most cancellations recently, but Merrill said the rest are making up to 98 percent of their scheduled runs.
Caroline Bigelow was waiting on the Lincolnville side for the last boat to Islesboro. She said the demand for the ferry spikes in the summer months, and delays and cancellations only worsen the crowding. She’s from Concord, Massachusetts, but has a house on Islesboro that she stays at periodically through the year.
“Everything’s grown,” Bigelow said. “It’s busier, there’s a lot of construction on the island, a lot of trucks. And when the ferry goes down, it affects everyone. And forget it if you work on the mainland and live over there year-round. How do you, you know, do that commute?”
But she said ferry struggles are part of life on the island, and why the community comes together in support at important moments.
“Everyone helps each other — island living, it’s part of that, ‘who has a boat that can come over and get you, who has groceries, let’s load them all on, get them over there,'” she said. “And then everyone helps you on the other side with cars and pickups and drop offs. And so the island really does come together for those moments.”
As July quickly approaches, Merrill said the Department of Transportation has an agreement with a new staffing agency to help bolster its crews and is continuing to look for ways to attract and retain workers.
This article appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.