Lacking matching funds, Woodbridge ferry yet to be torpedoed and sunk

WOODBRIDGE -- For commuters in Woodbridge heading to the Pentagon and beyond, there’s carpooling, rail and single-occupancy vehicles going up congested Interstate 95.

But to Woodbridge District Supervisor Frank Principi there’s another choice, and that’s the high-speed ferry up the Potomac River. It seems feasible to Principi and others in Woodbridge, but it didn’t seem to get closer to reality in the July 10 Prince William County Board of Supervisors meeting, where county Transportation Department Director Rick Canizales kept the project it in the holding pattern, where it’s been in for several years now.

“If you’re looking to fund this project through a grant, it has to have a match,” he said during an hours-long special work session on Transporation.

Principi did bring up some figures and funding sources, like at least $4 million from the Federal Transit Administration. To get the cash, however, the county would have to provide matching funds.  The problem is, the ferry is not in the county budget, and that may be because a ferry nowhere to be found in the county's comprehensive plan. The more Principi pressed Canizales for an explanation as to why the ferry isn't funded during the July meeting; the response took a meandering path.

“Many of these boxes are checked,” he said. “Congestion relief' is one element of justification for transit projects, which the ferry might go under," explained Canizales.

Canizales referred back to the way other projects are approved.

“We have a county model, a travel demand model,” Canizales said.

The ferry boats that Principi is looking at would travel up the river at 48 knots and hold 400 passengers at a time, which could mean the equivalent of up to 400 cars off the area roads. At least one operator has told Principi he would be interested in operating his ferry -- Entertainment Cruises, Inc. A white paper on Principi’s website called the “Commuter Fast Ferry Service High-Level Project Screening Report,” states some advantages of the ferry include the potential development around the ports/stations, promoting tourism for points north and improving emergency preparedness aspects for the river. In a report from 2009, the ferry was priced at $3.8 million compared to Virginia Railway Express at $48 million and OmniRide at $12 million. And, for all that the ferry could be, there's also a lot of things it's not. For starters, it would spend most of its time operating not in Virginia but Maryland. The Free State to north owns the river, and Virginia transportation funding agencies like the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority don't make it a habit to fund out-of-state projects.

“Once it's out in the water, NVTA can’t touch that project,” Canizales told Principi.

He also points out the ferry project isn't even included in NVTA's 2040 master plan,  a document the state funding authority usees to prioritize which transportation project to fund. Canizales, however, isn’t anti-ferry.

“I am impartial to the idea of a ferry, but feel that it is a high-cost item, with continual operations and maintenance (local subsidy) funds that the county currently does not have and will have to establish before a true project can be advanced,” he stated, responding to Potomac Local by email.

A ferry needs both capital and operational funding to build the infrastructure (docks and parking), buy boats, and have funds to pay for running the boats and ongoing maintenance. Occoquan has been identified as a possible place for a new dock for which a ferry would use. Canizales says it is a possible answer to removing vehicles from the I-95 corridor but exactly how much of a relief needs to be determined. The number of vehicles taken off the roads would depend on the size of the boats ultimately chosen to operate the ferry service and how many people they could transport, and the frequency and reliability of the service.