Quincy City Council Supports Funding Ferry to Long Island

Quincy MA

14 January, 2021

10:44 AM

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QUINCY, MA — After years of debate about rebuilding a bridge from Quincy to Long Island, where a recovery center will be housed, Quincy City Councilors voted to help fund a ferry system to the island at their meeting Monday. The council has not discussed the amount of money it would contribute, Councilor Brian Palmucci told Patch Wednesday, but said it would be able to figure out the funding quickly. "If the city of Boston is willing to run ferry service, we'll figure out the funding tomorrow," Palmucci said. Boston, however, says that a ferry is not sufficient for a treatment facility. "Simply, a ferry does not provide the necessary level of public safety access—for our Fire Department, emergency medical vehicles, and other public safety agencies—that a campus of this nature requires," a representative from the city said in an email to Patch on Thursday. "We cannot reopen a public health facility on Long Island without the guaranteed, 24-hour, all-weather public safety access that only a bridge can provide." Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said he would seek to open the treatment center when he began his second term back in 2018. Quincy politicians have long opposed the reconstruction of the bridge, citing that people traveling through Quincy to access the bridge would create traffic, as it's located at the end of a one-lane road, alongside negative environmental effects of building the bridge for ocean-life. The city of Boston says, though, that a ferry system would have a greater negative environmental impact than a bridge would. "The recovery campus on Long Island cannot be realized without vehicular access to Long Island, and water transportation will have a significantly greater harm to the natural resources and the waterway in the Boston Harbor," the city representative said in an email to Patch. Forging Ahead The Quincy city councilors said helping to fund a ferry system is an attempt to work with the city of Boston, particularly as Walsh is expected to leave to become president-elect Joe Biden's labor secretary in Washington. "We have been in court for three years," said Quincy City Councilor William Harris at the council's meeting Monday night. "We have fought hard, and we have held our ground, and now it's time to help the people. That's all this was about." The city of Boston said it wants to continue to work toward opening the campus—something both cities have said is necessary. "We thank the City of Quincy for their support of our shared priority: expanding and improving the region's recovery services through a reopened campus on Long Island to serve our most vulnerable populations; and, we look forward to continuing our conversations with Quincy to make that happen," the city of Boston representative said in an email to Patch. In December 2020, the Superior Court voided the Quincy Conservation Commission's decision to withhold an environmental permit for building the bridge. While Walsh considered the move a win for those pushing to open the center, the Patriot Ledger reported that Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch said the city will "explore appeal options." Palmucci said at the meeting that the city is not and never has been opposed to the creation of the recovery center—it is merely concerned about the effects of rebuilding the bridge. "What we're doing tonight with this resolution is putting our money where our mouth is," Palmucci said. "We're saying that we'll share the cost of access by ferry, that we're not opposed to the recovery center, that we have concerns about the bridge." Palmucci said in an interview Wednesday that although the council has not formally proposed a site for the ferry, they are open to it being in Quincy. There is already a pier at Marina Bay, and the road that leads there is better equipped to handle traffic than the one-lane road that would lead to the proposed bridge, he said. Palmucci said they've reached out to Boston about the possibility of a ferry in the past and have received no response. He says he hopes the city considers the passage of this resolution as an olive branch, so they can get the center up and running as soon as possible for the people who need it. Though the council has not announced where the funding will come from, Palmucci said he expects it will be funded by taxpayers. "We're currently spending six figure sums for litigation," he said. "I'm sure no one would have a problem deferring those funds from a lawyer's pocket to funding a ferry." The Patriot Ledger reported a year ago that Quincy had spent $400,000 in litigation costs fighting the bridge up until that point, and expected to spend $200,000 more each year it was in litigation. Quincy councilors fear that Boston will develop the island beyond just the recovery center—that's because Boston designated it as an economic opportunity zone. These zones are intended to incentivize investment in low-income areas, as they could be eligible for "preferential" tax treatment, according to the IRS.