Gagetown residents won't say goodbye to ferry without a fight

Finance Minister Roger Melanson cut "virtually the life blood" of Gagetown when he announced the elimination of the village's ferry this week, says one of the area residents promising a fight to have the service restored.

"Mr. Melanson, with a stroke of a pen more or less said, 'Listen Gagetown, you're done,'" Wilf Hiscock said Friday in an interview on Information Morning Saint John.

"We were blindsided on budget day with the closure of our ferry … we're going to hit this head on. We're trying to get the government officials' attention to return our ferry to us in the spring."

The free cable ferry, which crosses the St. John River between Gagetown and Lower Jemseg, was already running on a reduced schedule put in place by the provincial government after undergoing an estimated $100,000 in repairs last year.

Hiscock, who speaks for the Save Gagetown Ferry group, says people in the village are managing fine without the ferry during the winter. But the warmer months are another matter.

"We have very little winter tourism in Gagetown, but the spring, summer, fall is the time. Everything is abuzz, business picks up, more people are working in the summer, farm workers are travelling back and forth, you name it," he said.

"We're no different than anywhere else in the province, we pay our taxes. That ferry is no different than a bridge or an extension of our highway."

Now residents must drive about 70 kilometres round-trip to everything from medical appointments to church services. One area farmer bought property on the Jemseg side of the river — a 14 minute trip when the ferry was operating, he said.

"Now he's landlocked, he can't get to it other than driving around with farm machinery, heavy, slow-moving farm machinery," Hiscock said.

"The insurance liabilities are astronomical, it's not safe on a four-lane highway and he's now travelling an hour. This was the stuff the government didn't consider at all."

Government officials said last month the cost of replacing the ferry is estimated to be in the millions of dollars.

Ferry service in that region has been uncertain for some time. The former Shawn Graham government announced in 2009-10 that it would axe the Gagetown ferry, among others.

Following a local lobbying blitz, the Graham government backed down and instituted a reduction in service, rather than eliminate the ferry.