The Coastal Transit Authority’s annual subsidy review flagged the Arden Isle ferry as one of six routes running below the cost-recovery threshold the agency uses to judge which services survive. For six months, islanders did not know whether the route would make it to next spring.
The route carries around ninety passengers a day between the mainland town of Corry and Arden Isle, population four hundred, most of whom have no other way to reach a hospital, a bank or a supermarket larger than the island’s single general store.
“Cutting it wasn’t really cutting a ferry,” said island council member Teodora Skene. “It was cutting the island off.”
The Authority’s board voted in July to keep the route, but only after switching the current boat, a forty-year-old double-decker, for a smaller vessel that costs less to run and less to maintain. The swap cuts the route’s annual subsidy by around a third, from just under 900,000 to roughly 610,000, according to figures the Authority released after the vote.
The trade-off is capacity. The smaller boat holds sixty passengers rather than a hundred and ten, and during the July agricultural fair, islanders reported waiting through two sailings to get a seat.
Authority spokesperson Ines Halvard said the smaller vessel reflected actual ridership outside peak weekends and that a larger relief boat would be chartered for known high-demand dates.
Skene is not fully satisfied but calls the outcome a reprieve. “We’re not popular with the accountants,” she said. “But we’re still running, and on this island that counts as a win.”
The Authority’s next subsidy review is scheduled for two years from now.
