Cross Sound Ferry and Suffolk County have been awarded a $1.23 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration to fund improvements at the ferry terminal in Orient Point, Congressman Timothy Bishop announced at a press conference at the terminal this afternoon.
“This represents a very productive partnership of two levels of government and the private sector. I am delighted to see the federal government stepping up to the plate and helping local, municipal governments and the private sector,” Bishop said.
The Cross Sound Ferry’s vessels carry passengers and vehicles between Orient Point and New London, Conn., a service which company CEO Adam Wronowski described as a “lifeline” between Long Island and New England.
“The work that we are going to do is vital to maintaining that ‘lifeline’ service,” Wronowski said at the press conference.
The two vehicle ramps at the terminal will be removed and reinstalled with new equipment. The terminal’s dolphins, the wooden structures that extend past the pier for the boats to moor to, will also be replaced and additional mooring dolphins will be constructed. Two hundred and seventy linear feet of bulkhead will be constructed. The existing bulkhead is estimated to have been in place since at least the 1940s.
“We’re standing on a peninsula of land surrounded by sheet pile bulkhead, some of it dating back to the 1950s, and it has deteriorated,” Wronowski said. New sheet pile will be driven in place and concrete will be poured over it “to secure the peninsula of land the ferry is docked on.”
The improvements will begin in six months, after the ferry’s peak summer season ends, and is planned to take only six months to complete. Construction will be phased so that there is no interruption of service for ferry customers, who number more than 1 million passengers each year.