Hampton Roads Transit is exploring options to bring back ferry service to transport passengers between the Peninsula and Norfolk.
Population and job growth are among the factors that support potential interest in passenger ferry service in the region, and HRT is eyeballing four locations in Newport News and Hampton.
HRT Chief Planning and Development Officer Ray Amoruso said ferry service would provide additional transportation options beyond the “pretty limited” bus routes on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel. He noted that many Southside residents work at the Newport News shipyard and struggle to find parking.
“So it’s just another way to help people commute, maybe without the problems of construction at HRBT or Monitor-Merrimac traffic,” he said.
Discussions about the project are preliminary and do not include vehicle transportation on ferries. On Tuesday, Amoruso and other representatives from HRT discussed a recent study examining the feasibility of the transportation service with the Newport News City Council.
The idea of a ferry service connecting the Peninsula to the Southside isn’t new. Ferry service connected the region prior to the completion of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel in 1957. More recently, HarborLink offered fast-ferry service between the downtowns of Hampton and Norfolk from 1999-2002. However, that service was discontinued due to the lack of a sufficient ridership base.
“Nobody was riding it at the time,” Amoruso said. “Ridership was very, very low for the days that it was operating. So it was costly to run, and the decision was made to pull the plug on that.”
When revisiting the matter, HRT studied job and population density, the No. 1 indicator of transit use, reviewed travel flow data, conducted stakeholder interviews, and visited sites to determine infrastructure challenges and development opportunities.
The study concluded there was very low ridership potential for a ferry taking people between Newport News and Hampton but there could be decent ridership potential between Newport News and Norfolk.
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Potential ferry locations
Four potential landing sites eyed for launching a ferry service on the Peninsula include 28th and 23rd streets in Newport News, and at the Virginia Air and Space Science Center and Hampton Maritime Center in Hampton. Amoruso said if the cities wanted to move forward, there would only be one landing site per city.
The 23rd Street location in Newport News comes with benefits, including a bulkhead supportive of ferry infrastructure for use in the near term and proximity to public transit connections and proposed development. However, this location’s parking would conflict with nearby residential and commercial uses and it’s not as close to the shipyard as the 28th Street location.
The 28th Street spot is near Newport News Shipbuilding and associated facilities, adheres to the city’s Downtown Vision Plan that proposes a pier/ferry service in this location, and would be close to public transit connections and proposed development. However, there is currently no supporting infrastructure and it would take longer to build. Dredging and permitting would be required and the city would need to make parking available.
HRT officials noted the city could opt to use 23rd Street temporarily before moving operations to 28th Street.
HRT estimates a 60-minute trip between Newport News and Norfolk, which includes a 50-minute ferry ride and a 10-minute embarkation time at the terminal. HRT estimates demand of 155-235 passengers traveling between the Southside and Newport News during the morning peak of 6-9 a.m. Amoruso said the cities would need to secure catamaran-style fast ferries, which he said are “seaworthy” and would be able to safely navigate the waters.
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Cost to build and operate
HRT Regional Transit System Manager Robert Lee proposed two fleet operating scenarios to Newport News officials. One would include 8-hour operating days Monday through Friday (260 days a year) and collectively cost Newport News and Norfolk a little more than $2 million a year to operate. The other would be 8-hour operating days on weekdays and Saturdays and 9 hours on Sundays (355 days a year) and cost the cities about $2.86 million.
Capital costs — including purchasing three vessels and developing landing sites — would range between $17.7 million to $25 million, depending on the location for the Newport News landing. Amoruso said the aim would be to get as much of the capital costs covered by grants as possible, but Newport News and Norfolk would have to split the expenses not covered by grants.
A Newport News spokesperson said the city has no timeline for making a decision on whether to pursue the transit project.
If Hampton is interested in ferry service, Amoruso said the city would need to pay its share. He expects HRT will discuss the matter with the Hampton and Norfolk city councils in the near future.
Josh Janney, joshua.janney@virginiamedia.com
