UPDATE: Outer Bankers are uniting to oppose tolls on Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry

March 17, 2011 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak

UPDATE: Outer Bankers are uniting to
oppose tolls on Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry

By CATHERINE KOZAK

Outer Bankers are uniting against the prospect of tolling the Hatteras–Ocracoke ferry, but the question of whether it is even legal under current state law remains unanswered.

In response to a presentation made on March 8 to a state transportation subcommittee, the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce issued a press release citing two state statutes that appear to say that tolling the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry, the only free means of transportation to and from Ocracoke Island, would be prohibited.

“We follow the law as the law has been given to us,” said Greer Beaty, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, which oversees the ferries.

“We have not asked for a legal opinion because there is not a ruling or a budget to react to.”

North Carolina Department of Justice spokeswoman Jennifer Canada said this week that the attorney general’s office has also not been contacted by a member of the General Assembly, or anyone else, for an opinion on the statutes.

Darlene Styron, the Ocracoke representative on the Hyde County Board of Commissioners, said that the legal issue needs to be addressed first, since the Ocracoke route is different than any other in the state.

“We do not have an alternative route,” she said. “We have no choice.”

Beaty said that Deputy Secretary for Transit Jim Westmoreland had been asked to provide scenarios for budget cuts and revenue increases to the Joint Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee for the ferry systems, as well as other state transportation divisions.

Westmoreland’s presentation said that by charging a $10 toll on the currently free ferry routes, including Hatteras, and doubling the fees on Cedar Island and Swan Quarter routes to $30, toll revenue would increase to $10.4 million a year from the current $2.2 million.

“We have not been instructed to make changes,” Beaty said. “At this point, there isn’t a plan, there isn’t a process.”

The department has hired Raleigh transportation consultants Wilbur Smith Associates to complete a $105,000 draft study by May that will look at the economic impact on tolling, Beaty said. But it will not include, she said, a specific economic impact on Ocracoke businesses.

“That would have to be a completely different study,” Beaty said.

Styron said that many of the 130 people who attended a meeting about the possible toll Wednesday, March 16, on Ocracoke were concerned that a $10 toll each way would cripple the tourist trade that not only pays their bills but fills the county coffers with tax revenue.

“I can tell you that about 70 percent of my business is day-trippers,” said Styron, who owns the Fig Tree deli and bakery and Sweet Tooth.

But other communities will feel the pinch, she said, because islanders would not be able to afford trips to Hatteras and Nags Head.

Hyde County Manager Mazie Smith said that a resolution opposing the toll will be presented to the board at Monday’s meeting.

Smith said that there is concern that the survey will not reach the Ocracoke tourists, since few travel to the island in the winter months. That concern and others will be addressed with officials, she said.

“We can’t sit back and not do anything,” Smith said. “They need to know that it will greatly impact people’s lives and livelihoods.

“Why should our citizens be impacted any more than any other citizens? Taking the ferry is a matter of convenience in other places. We can’t drive (to) Ocracoke. It’s not a luxury, riding the ferry. It’s a necessity.”

Even conducting business between the county seat in Swan Quarter and Ocracoke — for citizens and county employees — could become too expensive.

The clerk of court told her, Smith said, that the fee the county pays people for jury duty wouldn’t even cover the proposed toll.

In an interview after the subcommittee meeting, state Sen. Stan White, a Nags Head Democrat, said that some committee members even suggested that the state should recoup 100 percent of the operating cost of the ferry system, rather than the proposed 25 percent, saying that the proposed $150 annual fee “needs to be $150 a month.”

“That’s not a job stimulus,” he said.

White said he feels strongly that tolling the ferries, especially water-locked Ocracoke, would only hurt the economy, and he intends to find the data to support his view.

“This is just being bandied about in a subcommittee,” White said. “But DOT is adamant about not starting any kind of collection until 2012 —- unless I can convince them that North Carolina doesn’t need to be a kind of place you need to pay to visit.”

CLICK HERE to see a PowerPoint of a presentation by NCDOT’s Deputy Secretary for Transit Jim Westmoreland to the General Assembly’s Joint Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee.

CLICK HERE to read the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce’s letter opposing tolls.

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