Port of Pittsburgh to start weekday water taxi service
Pittsburgh Business Times - by Christopher Davis
The last time someone launched a daily water taxi service in Pittsburgh, it wasn't exactly a splashing success, but local commuters could once again have that transportation option.
The Port of Pittsburgh Commission is in line to receive $3 million in federal funding to oversee the start of a new weekday water taxi service linking Homestead and Downtown, near the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
The funding, which was recently approved by the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, is part of a pending 2004 federal transportation appropriations bill.
J.D. Fogarty, director of development for the Port of Pittsburgh Commission -- an 11-year-old state agency based in the Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown -- said the commission is merely a conduit for the federal money.
The commission would use it to buy two 149-seat boats, as well as build docking facilities, but would seek bids from private boating companies interested in running the actual day-to-day taxi operations, Mr. Fogarty said. Purchasing the boats would alleviate a major capital hurdle for interested operators, he said.
Mr. Fogarty said the commission does not intend to go up against private boating companies that already run charters and limited shuttle service on the city's three rivers. The commuter service he envisions also would run only on weekdays -- not during more lucrative weekends, when private charter boats and Steelers game-day shuttles dominate local waterways.
"It would be our intention to put out a request for proposals for some outfit to operate it," Mr. Fogarty said. "We don't want to compete with them. I think they're doing pretty well by themselves.
"Certainly, we're not going to take federal funds and create an unfair (situation)."
Whether any of the handful of boat operators who already transport passengers from point to point around the city would be interested in contracting with the Port of Pittsburgh Commission to run the commuter service is unclear.
At least one operator, Pittsburgh Water Taxi owner Wayne Dean, was skeptical about the service's prospects for success and questioned the logic of using public money to start it.
In 2001, Mr. Dean briefly ran a $5-per-round-trip daily commuter shuttle from Millvale to Downtown, but ended the service because of a lack of interest.
"I've already tried something like that, and in a month's time I lost $25,000. Something like (what the Port of Pittsburgh is planning), you'd lose your ass," Mr. Dean said. "There's not enough volume."
He said most of his business these days consists of charters and Steelers game-day shuttles from the Boardwalk in the Strip to Heinz Field. He owns two pontoon boats, one with a 41-passenger capacity and the other with a 49-passenger capacity.
"We don't do commuter stuff right now because there's no call for it," Mr. Dean said.
'Flush them down the toilet'
Mr. Fogarty said Mr. Dean's Millvale-based commuter service failed because the boarding area was difficult to access and commuters who had already driven that near to Downtown were through the worst of Route 28's rush hour traffic and had no incentive to get out and take a boat the rest of the way.
"Other than parking costs, what we're you avoiding at that point?" he said.
Mr. Fogarty said the Port of Pittsburgh Commission used a 2001 feasibility study conducted by the Port Authority of Allegheny County and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, as well as the Port of Pittsburgh Commission's own studies, to determine whether it should back a new commuter service. He said he believes the demand is sufficient to support such a service.
He said the commission looked into launching the service from a location near the Highland Park Bridge, but the steepness of the river bank there would have made it difficult to access the boarding area.
The commission also looked at starting out from Neville Island, where there is a park-and-ride lot. However, the lot is underutilized for the most part, he said.
Homestead seemed ideal, especially with The Waterfront, a sprawling retail development, located there, Mr. Fogarty said.
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