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Go to Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
(December 20, 2005) — I have been a supporter of the fast ferry since it was a mere glint in the eyes of Dominick DeLucia and Brian Prince, the entrepreneurs who brought the big boat here last year. But the needle on my optimism tank is inching close to E.
The Rochester City Council will vote (either tonight or, as Mayor-elect Robert Duffy has asked, in a few weeks) on Mayor Bill Johnson's request to sell $11.5 million in bonds to replenish the city-owned ferry's reserve fund. But if the decision is to borrow the money, our elected officials and the Rochester Ferry Co. must achieve a major turnaround in the 2006 season, starting with off-season marketing to likely travelers.
The ferry's original private operators shut down the boat after 90 days. The city bought it for $32 million, borrowed $8 million more as a reserve and hired Bay Ferries, an experienced Canadian ferry company, to run the service. After four months, the ferry company was out of money — thanks, in part, to bad luck and expenses that will not recur, such as a major engine overhaul not covered by warranty.
I still believe a fast ferry between Rochester and Toronto can be successful, if Bay Ferries and the city take the steps now proposed — launching an aggressive, targeted marketing campaign, while eliminating the $1,100-per-crossing cost of U.S. pilots who are supposed to guide the ship into port. The ferry will be able to fly under the U.S. flag without pilots as soon as it has trained American captains to run the boat. That has to be taken care of this winter.
The key failure has been marketing. Since Prince and DeLucia first started promoting the ferry, it's been clear that its owners would have to market the service, not rely on Rochesterians taking day trips.
Arnold Rothschild, president of Normal Communications, has been brought onboard to market the ferry. "It's about identifying the segments who will use this and communicating with them," he says. The ferry has to be sold as a "cruise ship that takes cars" — not as time-saving transportation, but as a pleasure trip that also gets you across Lake Ontario.
To simplify, the challenge is to find audiences who want to come to Rochester for the Lilac Festival, the jazz festival, the LPGA — and offer them deals they can't refuse. Or to sell it to travelers from Ontario and northeast who might enjoy the ferry more than a drive. It means finding Canadians who'd like to visit the wine country, or the Waterloo outlet mall, or finding Americans who'd like to catch a show or a ballgame in Toronto — then making it easy.
Furthermore, City Council and city taxpayers deserve more than cursory quarterly reports. The ferry company should be updating the public on advance sales, on the group sales packages being offered. We need updates, at least monthly, on the ferry company's efforts and success in generating new revenues — by all accounts, the key to future success.
Can the ferry operation be turned around with another year? I don't know. I do know, however, that shutting it down right now isn't much of an option. The creditors would call in the loans. The city would hold a distress sale and take what it could get (maybe no more than $20 million), and the boat would sit here all winter, incurring maintenance expenses, until the St. Lawrence Seaway opens in the spring. City taxpayers would pay somewhere around $2 million a year to retire the debt over 14 years.
So yes, it's worth another try, to save the ferry, and to spare the taxpayers.
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