The Alaska Marine Highway System began accepting bookings for its winter ferry schedule this month.
Under the finalized winter schedule, Haines will receive three port calls a week—Sunday, Tuesday, Friday—from the LeConte until the vessel goes into layup in mid-February. After that, the community will receive a weekly visit from the Matanuska until the LeConte comes back online in mid-April.
In a Sept. 1 press release, the Alaska Department of Transportation (DOT) said it was necessary to create a ferry schedule with reduced winter service for most communities as a cost-saving measure. The marine highway has experienced a significant decrease in revenue as the COVID-19 pandemic has led to decreased ridership.
By press time, DOT hadn’t responded to questions about how input received from the Haines community impacted winter scheduling decisions.
At the Haines Borough Assembly’s Aug. 11 meeting, Mayor Jan Hill said she provided comments to the state about winter ferry service. She said she told the department the community would prefer ferry service four to five times a week to aid with business and school travel.
“I did say we can survive with less, but we cannot thrive if we have what we had last year,” Hill said.
Haines went without ferry service for seven weeks this winter, the result of budget cuts and the breakdown of the department’s sole function mainliner, the Matanuska, in late January. In winter 2019, prior to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s cuts to the ferry system, Haines received winter sailings three times a week—Sunday, Monday and Friday.