View of Glenora Ferry from Lake on the Mountain in Prince Edward County. (Photo: Nicole Kleinsteuber / Quinte News)
Prince Edward County, Loyalist Township and the Town of Greater Napanee are working together to try and win back the trust of regular ferry users after disruptions in service in 2015.
Mayor Robert Quaiff sat down with members of the Ministry of Transportation, and the mayors of Napanee and Loyalist on Monday to brainstorm solutions after a retrofit to the Wolfe Islander III forced a delay in service to the three pronged ferry service (Glenora Ferry, Wolfe Islander III, Amherst Island Ferry) during peak tourist months.
Transport Canada says every five years the ferries must do a dry dock schedule – and come back. Quaiff says the problem is that the two County ferries (the Glenora and the Quinte Loyalist) are six months apart from the five year schedule. This reduced the County to one last summer.
Going forward requests are being made to take one ferry out of service for repairs before the May long weekend this year and then the other in 2017.
In the meantime, the three municipalities are going to create a working group to coordinate what events are happening and the ferries can plan for high volume.
“We project the tourist rate is going to have a huge boost based on the exchange rate on the American dollar,” said Quaiff. “With our average of 600,000 to 700,000 visitors per season we could be looking at closer to 1 million. They will monitor the volume and if they see that there are more cars than they will start the ferry before the long weekend in May.”
He said they are also looking into perishable goods because there are some Adolphustown farmers who aren’t sending their fruits and vegetables across to the County because they aren’t getting get first priority anymore and it’s up to the captain’s discretion.
The municipalities are promising better communication through social media.
Quaiff says he’s impressed with the efforts of Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca to get these issues resolved.
