Fairfield County ferry to New York part of Lamont plan

A plan to bring a high speed ferry to Fairfield County, with service out of Stamford and Bridgeport to lower Manhattan, is being resurrected by Gov. Ned Lamont for his yettobereleased transportation plan.

The idea has been studied, considered, planned and dropped multiple times since at least 2002, and as a result, much of the work and resources for nearly everything needed to bring ferry service from Connecticut to New York City — including up to $15 million previously earmarked by the Federal Highway Administration specifically for such a project — has already been done or is in place.

Lamont met with ferry supporters in Stamford to discuss the project in early August, and has consulted with the state Department of Economic and Community Development on existing plans for the project since learning the federal funding may still be available.

“What we learned is that most of the funding for that project is basically ready to go,” said Lamont spokesman Max Reiss. “This could be a real opportunity for another mode of transportation to get folks around not just lower Fairfield County but to New York as well. With a lot of that groundwork already being laid, we view it as what could be an incredible opportunity toward unleashing another mode of transportation in Fairfield County.”

The plan was dropped in 2014 after the state Department of Transportation denied a request for $1.2 million to the Bridgeport Port Authority “for a feasibility study and to complete preliminary engineering and construction of a highspeed ferry terminal” off Water Street. At that time, the money was to come out of a section of the state budget, passed in 2013, dedicated to improving ports and marinas, and the Port Authority was relying on federal grants for additional financing. Stamford had already pulled out of the plan, hurting the feasibility of the project.

The city of Stamford backed out of the plan in 2013 following a $50,000 study by the Beta Group in Hartford that examined the idea of establishing a ferry service to Manhattan at the southwest end of Atlantic Street. At the time, the

city’s economic development director said there was difficulty projecting demand for the service, and the city was still waiting to learn if Bridgewater Associates would open an office in Stamford, which they anticipated could affect demand. So the city ended the project but did not rule out future opportunities for a ferry service.

The Westportbased hedge fund has since moved a portion of its workforce to offices on the southwest end of Atlantic Street, and Stamford’s South End has seen substantial residential and commercial development in the years since the plan for a ferry terminal was last canceled.

A 2013 assessment by the Connecticut Department of Transportation and the city of Stamford also found that the ferry service would require a substantial annual subsidy to operate. That could still pose a problem in developing the service.

“The hope would be to partner with a private operator to make it

like a publicprivate partnership,” Reiss said. “At the end of the day all public transportation is publicly subsidized to some degree so we would explore it, but the hope would be to provide the service at an affordable cost. We’re looking at it because we see potential opportunity here.”

Reiss said new market research and environmental impact studies would need to be conducted for a ferry service in both Bridgeport and Stamford. In Bridgeport, Reiss said the ferry would work in tandem with the existing ferry service to Port Jefferson on Long Island, with the Bridgeport ferry terminal located under Interstate 95 near the existing site. He said it is unclear if there would be backandforth service between Stamford and Bridgeport, but said the route from Bridgeport to Manhattan and back would include stops in Stamford.