Petition Letter Regarding Proposed Changes to the Steamship Authority Waitlist and Standby Policy
To the Steamship Authority Board and Management,

We, the undersigned island residents and frequent Steamship Authority users, are writing to express serious concern about the proposed changes to the waitlist and standby policies that were recently presented by SSA staff and consultants.

We appreciate the Authority’s efforts to modernize its reservation system and to address long-standing capacity and utilization challenges. We also recognize the good-faith work being done by the consultant team and SSA staff to improve outcomes for all users of the system.

However, we believe the proposed waitlist and standby framework, as presented, would significantly reduce flexibility for island residents and, in practice, make it far more difficult to manage essential off-island travel for work, family, education, and healthcare.

Under the current system, island residents are able to book the first available reservation and then waitlist multiple future sailings on their desired date. This provides a realistic and practical way to manage travel in an environment where ferries routinely sell out weeks or months in advance, particularly during the summer season.

Based on the materials presented by SSA staff and consultants during the recent public Zoom session, the proposed future system would replace this with:

Waitlisting limited to only a small number of sailings (e.g., up to five) associated with an existing reservation, and
A more constrained standby option tied to a specific date and time, with limits on the number of standby tickets per sailing.
In real-world terms, this would force residents to gamble on a very limited set of sailings and hope for availability, with no meaningful way to plan ahead across multiple possible travel windows.

This change would have serious practical consequences. It would make it exceedingly difficult, cumbersome, stressful, and often expensive to reliably attend weddings, graduations, professional obligations, and family events. More critically, it would create major obstacles for residents who must travel off-island for medical treatments, procedures, and surgeries. In many cases, patients do not know in advance when they will be discharged or cleared to return home. Under the proposed framework, they would have no realistic way to secure return transportation, adding uncertainty and risk to already vulnerable circumstances.

These changes would disproportionately affect island residents compared to visitors, because residents are far more likely to have non-discretionary, unpredictable, and time-sensitive travel needs.

We are also concerned that the underlying premise of the proposed change — that reducing waitlist and standby activity will meaningfully improve system capacity and utilization — may be flawed. While limiting waitlists may reduce the appearance of “full” boats online, it does not change the fundamental reality that there are entire weeks in the summer where demand far exceeds supply. Restricting waitlist options does not create new capacity; it simply shifts risk and inconvenience onto customers, particularly island residents with non-discretionary travel needs.

In effect, the proposed system shifts operational risk from the Steamship Authority onto individual residents.

In effect, this approach may reduce system transparency without actually solving the core problem.

The Steamship Authority is not merely a booking platform — it is our only bridge to the mainland.

The Steamship Authority must recognize that for island communities, this system is not a convenience — it is a lifeline. There is no bridge, no alternative route, and no substitute mode of transportation. Access to the mainland for healthcare, employment, education, and family obligations depends entirely on the reliability and flexibility of this service. Policies should therefore be designed around real-world island needs, not around abstract efficiency models or technical constraints.

We are particularly troubled that a primary driver of the proposed changes appears to be software performance and system management considerations, rather than user needs and real-world travel behavior. While technical constraints are understandable, transportation policy for island communities should be driven first by lived experience and public service priorities.

The current waitlist system, while imperfect, reflects the realities of island life and seasonal demand. It provides essential flexibility in a constrained transportation environment. Any new system should preserve this core functionality, even if doing so requires additional technical investment or more complex system design.

We respectfully urge the Steamship Authority to:

Reconsider the proposed waitlist and standby restrictions.
Retain the ability for customers to waitlist multiple sailings on future dates.
Test any new system with island stakeholders before implementation.
Prioritize healthcare access, family obligations, and essential travel needs in all policy decisions.
We support modernization and system improvement. But modernization should improve access, predictability, and fairness for island residents — not reduce them.

Respectfully submitted,

Name: ___________________________
Island: __________________________
Signature: _______________________
Date: _____________