Ferry connects two old communities

By Rhiannon Meyers
The Daily News

Published March 20, 2008

Though lauded as the island’s best free tourist attraction, the Galveston-Bolivar ferry has long been the focus of controversy.

Owned and operated by the state’s transportation department, the ferry is the only way motorists can cross the waterway between Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston Island. For many, it’s a lifeline between home, work, schools, medical care and the grocery store.

But there’s no priority boarding pass, and the wait for a boat can be hours long. Federal security measures enacted in response to Sept. 11 terrorist attacks mandate random screenings at the landings, sometimes making trips even more inconvenient.

Some have argued that a bridge connecting the island and peninsula would be more efficient than the ferry system, but as old newspaper articles show, that argument is as old as the ferry system itself.

Ferry boats have been chugging across the Intracoastal Waterway for 78 years, and they aren’t going away any time soon.

A History Lesson

A private company established the first ferry service between Port Bolivar and Galveston in 1929. Two wood-hulled ferries, the Galveston and Jefferson, carried 25 cars and made six round-trips a day.

At the end of 1929, the company sold its ferries to Galveston County, which operated the service for only six months before it became too expensive.

In April 1930, Galveston County sold its ferries to the state.

The Galveston Daily News reported in April 1930 that the Bolivar Peninsula was “undergoing a transformation the like of which its older residents, some of whom have lived there for three-quarters of a century, had never dreamed would come true.”

The key to the transformation? The “new” Galveston-Bolivar ferry.

“The new Island-Bolivar ferry proved its worth to Galveston yesterday when dozens of cars, loaded with tourists from East Texas, crossed it on their way to the Splash Day activities here,” a 1930 Daily News article stated. “In addition to out-of-town visitors who crossed the ferry on their way to Galveston, many local people made the crossing, some of them getting their first close-up view of Bolivar Peninsula.”

For more than a dozen years, the state charged 25 cents for ferry rides. In 1949, it halted the practice, and the ferry rides have been free since.

By 1977, the state was operating three ferries, which had been lengthened and widened to carry 70 vehicles.

The ferry service boomed in just five decades. In 1942, half a million people hitched a ride on the Galveston-Bolivar ferries; in 2000, more than 6.6 million people rode the ferries.

Over the years, the department has bought new ferries and sold off the old ones as surplus. One retired Galveston-Bolivar ferry is now a reptile museum.

Trips Down In Recent Years

Today, the state’s transportation department has a fleet of five diesel-powered, double-ended ferry boats: Robert C. Lanier, Gibb Gilchrist, Dewitt C. Greer, Ray Stoker Jr. and the Robert H. Dedman. The state has commissioned construction of a sixth ferry, which should be ready by mid-2009.

The 185-foot boats carry 70 vehicles and 500 passengers a piece. All of the boats are named for former Texas Transportation Commission members, except the oldest boat, the Gilchrist, named after a former state highway engineer.

The Galveston-Bolivar ferry system is the fifth largest in the United States a year, according to a national ferry report. It’s considered a commuter ferry, with peak times emulating those on state highways. In the summer months, the ferries are crowded with tourists snapping photos of dolphins popping in and out of the waves, said ferry supervisor Bill Mallini. In the offseason, the ferry is almost solely used by Bolivar residents, he said.

However, ferry traffic has steadily tapered in recent years. In 1996, 2.16 million vehicles boarded the ferry; in 2006 only 2 million vehicles made the trip. The number of ferry trips has gone down as well. Five ferries made 26,000 trips in 1996; they made 3,000 fewer trips 10 years later.

Mallini partially blames high gas prices and vehicle screenings on decreased ferry traffic. But more than that, he blames staff shortages.

Bridge Not Likely

Though the 24-hour-a-day, 365-days-a-year operation employs hundreds of maintenance and repair workers, deckhands, captains, seaman, administrators and screeners, the ferries remain short-staffed, Mallini said.

The boats are spray-painted with permanent classified advertisements seeking new employees to work on-board the 1,200-ton boats.

A boom in the marine industry has forced the ferry-service to compete with high-paying offshore oil industries for able seaman. The $16 million state-run ferry system can’t afford to pay what the oil industries pay, Mallini said. Staff shortages force the ferries to make fewer trips, he said.

Though some would like to see the ferry replaced by a bridge, that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

The state’s transportation department has been tossing around the idea for a bridge since 1933, according to old Galveston Daily News articles.

“‘The bridge is something we need badly and everybody wants it,’” Jimmie Vacek, a Galveston County commissioner, told The Houston Post in 1966. “The ferryboat is as outmoded as the Model-T. We need a bridge in the worst kind of way.’”

More than 60 percent of ferry passengers surveyed in 2006, supported the bridge, but the state officially dropped plans to build the longed-for $240 million bridge in October 2007.

“‘Clearly, there is no money to build it,’” state transportation department spokesman Norm Wigington said.