For legions of island residents and visitors, traveling to and from Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket has always been a bit of a headache.
But this summer, the ordeal of snatching a coveted reservation on heavy travel days, and navigating the maze of buses, cars, and general commotion at the terminals has gone to migraine level, fueling a season of discontent on the islands and mainland alike.
A fresh wave of tourists, along with an influx of new full-time island residents fleeing COVID, have packed ferries with thousands more cars, requiring travelers to book reservations weeks in advance for peak times. Islanders complain that the longstanding practice of booking trips at the last minute has been upended, making it nearly impossible for them to get to and from the mainland with their cars for appointments and other necessities.
And the seeming never-ending parade of freight trucks that clog the streets outside the Woods Hole terminal is straining patience and resources in that section of the coastal town of Falmouth.
Making matters worse, the terminal in Woods Hole has been consumed by a slow, costly reconstruction that is expected to run into next year.
“I refer to it periodically as the festering 30-year-old boil we have,” said Ed DeWitt, a Falmouth resident and chair of the town’s transportation committee.
Those who rely on the ferry service say its long-running problems have worsened in recent years, from a spate of mechanical issues three years ago that grounded boats to a ransomware hack earlier this year that derailed ticketing and communications for weeks.
The Steamship Authority’s booked system, where most reservation slots were claimed weeks in advance, has also made it more difficult to accommodate unforeseen problems, such as rebooking scores of people who were unable to travel after Tropical Storm Henri canceled 30 round trips last weekend. Some people were stranded on the islands for days.
Concern over the authority’s operations has bubbled up on Beacon Hill, where legislators are weighing whether the port communities have enough say in how the agency operates. Island representatives currently hold more power on its board of directors.
But critics say that giving those communities more voice would not resolve all their issues. The real problem, they say, is the authority’s board provides relatively little oversight of the quasi-public authority, allowing the agency to downplay longstanding concerns such as traffic congestion on the mainland or the need for more boats to the islands.
“That’s why it’s still such a mess,” said Bill Halstein, a Woods Hole resident and cofounder of a local task force that has advocated for changes to the Steamship Authority.
Sean Driscoll, a spokesman for the agency, said some of the fresh complaints have been triggered by the rebound in summer travel compared to the pandemic summer of 2020. “No one knew in the start of 2021 what the summer of 2021 was going to look like,” he said.
He said the agency is trying to mitigate its impact on Woods Hole, while also helping more islanders to travel during the busy summer season.
“It’s a balancing act for us to handle both sides of the water,” he said. “Not everybody is going to be happy all the time, unfortunately.”
State lawmakers created the Steamship Authority in 1960 to provide “adequate transportation” of people and goods to the islands. The agency, which ferries millions of people and critical supplies across the sound, often calls itself a “lifeline” for both islands. But many say the service is far from adequate.
In 2018, several high-profile mechanical failures on the authority’s boats led to major service interruptions, including hundreds of trip cancellations, multiple blackouts, and one boat running aground. A scathing consultants’ report on the incidents skewered the agency for “penny-pinching” and understaffing.
The authority made some changes, including adding safety technology to some boats and improving their reliability. But other issues, such as scheduling and the impact on port communities, remain problems, riders and neighbors say.
Passengers have reported even more trouble getting tickets for cars this summer, on a system that can already require reservations made weeks in advance. As of Aug. 7, the authority had transported nearly 9,000 more cars than it had at the same point in 2019.
“We feel like we’re being marooned,” said Rachel Baumrin, a business owner on Martha’s Vineyard who launched a petition this summer asking for a round-trip ferry reserved for islanders. The petition quickly racked up more than 1,000 signatures.
On a recent weekday, passengers lined up along the boardwalk in Oak Bluffs to board the ferry for Woods Hole, many bearing the suitcases and duffel bags of tourists making up the crush of summer traffic. Cars queued slowly into the hold, parking nearly bumper-to-bumper for precious space.
Above board on the observation deck, Martha’s Vineyard resident Ebony Goldwire said the reservation system this summer had only worsened. Goldwire said that after moving from New York 15 years ago, she used to reliably get a reservation or snag a standby spot to take her car off the island. Now, with slots in short supply, she has had to cancel entire trips.
This year, she noted, taking a car ashore in August would be nearly impossible without reserving a space at the beginning of July. For this last-minute trip to a dentist appointment that day, she was traveling without a car.
“You have to plan your life around the boat,” she said.
Driscoll said the authority’s space shortfall is driven in large part by so many passengers booking cars much earlier than in past years, leaving fewer spaces for last-minute travelers. The authority has also extended its reservation-only policy for Fridays through Mondays into October.
He declined to comment on Baumrin’s petition, saying it had not been directly received by a member of the authority’s administration.
On the mainland, residents have had their own slate of issues, particularly the traffic and gridlock created by more freight and returning travel.
On busy summer days, more trucks than ever now trundle up and down the road to the ferry’s main terminal in Woods Hole, critics say, sometimes numbering more than 600 a day and starting before dawn. Because of the reconstruction of the terminal, there is also limited space and capacity, snarling traffic on narrow streets.
“The impact is so large on Woods Hole,” said Nathaniel Trumbull, a resident and longtime Steamship critic. Some trucks are so heavy with freight they are more difficult to stop, he added, posing an additional hazard.
DeWitt, a former Falmouth representative to the Steamship Authority, said that the agency’s leaders have also been reluctant to push other options, such as building a port just for freight somewhere such as New Bedford, or changing boat schedules to make trips more efficient.
Officials have said that a separate freight-only service would be a money-losing operation for the authority. Driscoll said the agency is open to proposals from another carrier for freight service but has not received one.
“The issue remains a complicated one,” he added.
The authority’s root problem, critics say, is that it operates with little oversight or accountability. Though the authority was created by state lawmakers, it is run largely independently by administrators and a five-member board. Under the legislation that created it, the agency has a monopoly on commercial passenger traffic across Vineyard Sound, licensing competing services.
Its board — appointed by officials from Cape Cod, the Islands, and New Bedford — also gives the Islands’ representatives a collective 70 percent vote in any of the agency’s decisions, though that structure is coming under rare scrutiny this year in the Legislature.
A legislative committee is weighing small changes that would give port communities more voting power, though the authority has not taken an official position on the amendment.
Robert Jones, the Barnstable representative on the steamship board, said the directors are already accountable to state law and don’t need additional oversight. And he rejected the idea that the board is unresponsive:
“We do everything we possibly can to address problems.”
Even the amendment’s sponsor, state Senator Susan Moran, a Democrat from Falmouth, acknowledged the proposal is “a fairly minimal change.” Her goal, she said, is to “improve the conversation” between islanders and port residents by suggesting the change.
For most Steamship riders and neighbors, the problems are bigger than the board — and harder to solve.
Baumrin, the Martha’s Vineyard resident, said as long as the Steamship Authority continues to operate without competition and additional oversight, the agency has no incentive to change.
“They don’t have to solve the problem,” she said. “They can keep patting themselves on the back for making it through one disaster after another.”
Elizabeth Koh can be reached at elizabeth.koh@globe.com or on Signal at koh.20. Follow her @elizabethrkoh.