toledoblade.com --

For most of the 20th century, ferries played a significant transportation role on the Great Lakes, transporting people, vehicles, and railroad cars between the United States and Canada and across Lake Michigan.

But as operating costs rose, coal consumption diminished, railroad operating patterns changed, and better roads drew travelers away after World War II, the ferry services dwindled. Today, with only a few exceptions, Great Lakes ferries operate only on island routes for which there are no roadway alternatives.

Ferries may, however, be on the verge of a comeback - on Lake Erie and elsewhere.

For five years, Toledo officials have been working with U.S. and Canadian authorities and potential operators to develop all-season passenger service between Toledo and Windsor, Ont., - likely using surface-skimming Hovercraft vessels. In Sandusky, the Island Rocket ferry line is considering expanding its Lake Erie Islands trade next year to include service to Leamington, Ont.

With a 1999 study in hand showing that a route between Cleveland and Port Stanley, Ont., could work if it accommodates big trucks along with passengers and autos, the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority plans to conduct a more detailed analysis, perhaps beginning this year.

Stephen L. Pfeiffer, the Cleveland agency's maritime director, said two private firms have discussed operating a cross-lake ferry.

"We think it's going to happen, but we don't know when," Mr. Pfeiffer said. "We've been up and down the flagpole a few times, and we're not in the `build it and they will come' mode."

And in Rochester, N.Y., local and state officials are lining up support for a high-speed catamaran ferry linking that city with Toronto.

The various proposals envision tapping different markets. Toledo-Windsor is expected to appeal primarily to patrons of Windsor's casinos and other entertainment venues. Paul Reynolds, the managing director of Island Express, said he sees a possible Sandusky-Leamington route as primarily a tourist service too.

"Leamington might be a draw for [northern Ohio] tourists to visit Canada, and there might be some interest from the Canadian side too," he said.

Pelee Island Transportation Co. operates seasonal ferries linking the two cities, although the boats only run from May through September, only on weekends during part of that time, and take four hours to make the crossing.

The 1999 study of a Cleveland-Port Stanley route cited international tourism as a likely source of business, but anticipated substantial commercial traffic as well.

Assuming a two-hour transit across the lake, the study found that a ferry could cut travel time between Cleveland and industrial centers in southern Ontario by between one and eight hours. "If this body of water was anyplace else in the world, there'd be ferries run across it all the time," Mr. Pfeiffer said.

But regular steamer service between Cleveland and Port Stanley ended just before World War II, and several proposals to re-start it bore no fruit, the Cleveland study said.

George W. Hilton, a retired transportation economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has written several books about Great Lakes passenger shipping, said remaining ferry services, primarily on Lake Michigan, withered during 1950s and '60s because the steam-powered vessels were labor-intensive, labor costs were high, and ever-better roads around the lakes drained business away.

"The forces of decline for Great Lakes passenger steamers had been going on for years," Mr. Hilton said. A contributing factor was a September, 1949, fire aboard the S.S. Noronic while docked in Toronto that killed 118 people; Canada responded by enacting fire regulations that sent many of the old steamers to scrapyards.

If ferries return in significant numbers, Mr. Pfeiffer said, it will be because of growing congestion at Detroit and Buffalo-area border crossings.

International trade had begun to overwhelm the border crossings even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington led to more intense security screenings.

The 1999 report said border-crossing time for commercial traffic ranged between 20 minutes and two hours.

Congestion at the Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor Tunnel were cited among the reasons a Toledo-Windsor ferry might succeed. Delays at the Buffalo area's crossings appear in the reasoning for the Rochester-Toronto proposal.

The Toledo-Windsor project went public in early 1997 when the Ohio Department of Transportation announced a $1.2 million grant to the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority to build a ferry terminal on the Maumee River in International Park. That grant has been extended indefinitely.

After the Carty Finkbeiner administration objected to the site, the port negotiated a move to Brenner Marine; that site, in turn, has become a part of the proposed Marina District, a commercial and residential redevelopment of Toledo Edison's Acme Generating Station and adjoining land bounded by Main and Front streets and I-280.

Even longer to resolve was the issue of using Hovercraft for the service, which port officials said was the only way ferries could run year-round at speeds that would keep them competitive with driving. Hovercraft use their engines for propulsion and to generate and maintain a cushion of air beneath their hulls so they can skim along the surface of water or the ground. That feature allows them to travel at speeds of 40 mph and higher, vital to making the Toledo-Windsor route in 90 minutes or less.

The fiscal 2002 federal budget included a $500,000 grant to the port authority to cover part of the cost for buying and renovating one Hovercraft ferry, which is expected to cost between $1.5 million and $2 million. The port authority would operate a ferry service or lease the vessel to a commercial operator.

While employed for many years in European passenger service, Hovercraft have had limited use in North America, and getting vessels certified by the U.S. Coast Guard proved a sticky issue.

Now Toledo's port authority is waiting to hear the city of Windsor's decision about locating a ferry terminal at its end of the route. Any pressure from the port authority to expedite that process appears to have ended, at least temporarily, when seaport director John Loftus resigned in January to become assistant chief operating officer for Toledo.

"I haven't devoted a lot of time to this issue," said Jim Mettler, interim seaport director. "The only sense of urgency I've had is making sure the terminal is in the Marina District. Otherwise, it isn't a fire I've had to put out."

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