Word that a Louisiana company hopes to complete two ferries for St. John before the end of the year got all the attention last week when the Governor issued a news release. But the Inquiring Iguana thinks the real news was missed.
In the release, the Governor gave some people hope that a better, more efficient, and quicker ferry route to St. John from Charlotte Amalie may be considered.
Acknowledging that STT traffic is a nightmare and hardly the first impression the VIs want to give visitors headed for St. John, the Department of Public Works said it’s hired a consultant to develop a marine transportation system.
“The consultant will help determine appropriate vessels and marine transit routes … as well as study how residents and visitors alike can benefeit from new sea routes that will reduce traffic congestion downtown,” the Governor’s office said.
The Iguana thinks the best way to reduce congestion is to avoid it. Create a new route from the ferry terminal now serving boats going to Tortola and other places. That terminal is closer to the airport than the current “station” smack dab in downtown CA, at which cabs and busses chaotically stop, discharge and pickup passengers.
It’s likely, though, that the “Tortola Terminal” is too small, so … how about using Crown Bay? It’s big enough for the cruise ships, should be big enough for St. John ferries.
New ferry service to St. John, with a pickup point closer to the airport and would be less stressful for visitors, reduce traffic through Charlotte Amalie.
Just do it!
One can only hope! We’ve always done our best to make the trip from the airport to Cruz Bay as stress free as possible, but it’s definitely the part of the trip we always look forward to the least.
Crown Bay certainly is an option since the chances of a new dock at the airport are zero.
They ought to just just put a ferry dock next to the airport.
Just FORGET about LOCALS not working or shopping Down Town and how this would impact them. A ferry from the Airport makes more sense since we don’t want the visitors to see how OUR government has this Paradise for the LOCALS looking like hell. JUST SAYING.
This is the way the government usually works. Buy the boats, then do the study to determine the best equipment for the job.
Honestly, I have NO issue with taking the ferry from Redhook…not sure why anyone would think its stressful…as soon as my foot steps off the plane I’m in vacation mode…taking a cab to Redhook is part of the experince.
I’d much rather be on a boat longer than be in a crowded taxi van all the way to Red Hook. We do our best to avoid the ride to Red Hook and the thought of being able to depart from a dock closer to the airport would be a dream come true. Vacation for me is avoiding vehicle traffic. I get enough of that at home. In fact, we rarely even rent a vehicle on St. John. We use points to fly free and stay free so that usually means we stay at resorts and don’t need a vehicle. We do use the taxis in St. John for day long trips to beaches. When we’re in Europe we only use trains, we’re never on roads.
If they don’t do something they find more and more of us using other option to get to the Virgin Islands. This year, after our stay in St. John we head for Scrub Island for abother week and then fly out of Beef Island so we get to avoid St. Thomas traffic.
Forgive the spelling. In a rush.
I haven’t heard anything about how this will impact St. John. Will the ferry also use Cruz bay terminal? If not, where? Will it cause more “traffic” in St. John?
Using the CA boat to SJ was great! Worth the extra cost. But have not been able to connect with the now limited schedule. It was chopped a cpl years ago and made it not an option. Why not just increase the departures and arrivals from and to CA ?
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