Facing its busiest cruise ship season to date, the town of Bar Harbor is struggling to accommodate the increasing numbers of cruise ship passengers to the municipal dock. Voters are weighing competing ballot questions that could provide some relief by moving much of the current cruise ship traffic to a new location.
Cruise ships such as the 719-foot Maasdam that arrived in Bar Harbor Friday morning are becoming an increasingly familiar sight this year in Bar Harbor, where 171 ships have already scheduled visits. That’s a 40 percent increase over last year.
Dropping anchor off the municipal landing, the ships then pack their passengers onto smaller vessels called tenders that ferry the tourists back and forth to one of two docks in town. From there, passengers can connect with buses and trolleys to Acadia National Park and other Mount Desert Island attractions.
Others stroll past dozens of shops that line Main Street. At the Jeykll & Hyde gift store, former owner Marilyn Ryan is helping her daughter, who is training new employees. She says cruise ship passengers are among her favorite customers.
“They’re wonderful,” she says. “They don’t cause chaos. They don’t leave dirt. And then they go back on the cruise ship and maybe they’ll come back, maybe they’ll fly back, and stay a week.”
More than 225,000 passengers are expected to cruise into Bar Harbor this year, and those numbers are prompting local planners such as Bar Harbor Town Manager Cornell Knight to explore new ways to accommodate foot and harbor traffic.
Knight says cruise lines incur increased costs when they’re forced to transport passengers in smaller boats from the ship to the shore.
Five years ago, dozens of cruise ship passengers were tossed around when their tender ran aground near Bar Island. And while there were no serious injuries, Knight says the incident was duly noted by the cruise ship industry.
“Tendering does cost them money, there is a safety issue and the reason why we want to develop a pier is really basically three simple reasons: the congestion, environmental reasons — they run their engines in order to maintain their position for the tenders to board passengers — and safety,” he says. “It’s much safer for passengers to go off a pier.”
Knight, the Bar Harbor town council and the planning board are pursuing a plan requiring voter approval that would allow the town to enter into a purchase agreement for the former Marine Atlantic ferry terminal. Owned by the state, it’s the terminal that was once home to The Cat and Blue Nose ferries that traveled to Nova Scotia.
Later this month, voters will decide whether Bar Harbor should adopt the plan favored by municipal and state officials, or a citizen’s initiative that proponents say provides greater local control over the where the cruise ships will be anchored or moored.
Knight says the town wants voter approval before finalizing its own plan.
“We need it to pass in order to kind of move to the next step,” he says.
But standing in the way of that next step are some Bar Harbor residents and their Bangor attorney.
A.J. Greif, the attorney for Friends of Frenchman Bay and a Bar Harbor homeowner, says he and others fear the town will essentially be handing the future of Bar Harbor’s cruise ship industry over to the state and the cruise ship owners. He also worries that the town could wind up building a half-mile pier where cruise ships will create more noise, pollution and an unwanted visual distraction.
“The visitor who drives on the Park Loop Road and stops at the very first overlook would, instead of a splendid view of Bar Island and the Porcupine Islands, see two 20-story floating hotels up close and personal,” he says.
But of even greater concern to Greif and others than the ships’ effect on scenic attractions is the possible increase in the current daily cruise passenger cap of 5,500 to more than three times that number.
“Which would drive the high-value weekly and monthly visitors away, all for 15,000 daily visitors who might buy a lobster roll and a T-shirt,” he says.
Greif is backing Article 13 on the ballot, which would prohibit ships longer than 300 feet from mooring at any new proposed pier and leave the question of passenger caps to be governed by the town’s land use ordinance, requiring a town vote to make any changes to the cap.
Greif says the town’s position cuts voters out of the process, but Town Manager Cornell Knight and planning board members say Bar Harbor voters should have a little more faith in their municipal boards than Greif does.
“They’re elected town councilors, they’re responsible to the people, and to say that they’re going to cut out the public — I don’t buy it,” he says.
Should voters reject town leaders’ plan, Knight says the state will likely sell the ferry terminal property to private buyer, an option that Greif says may not be possible because of bond restrictions and environmental covenants at the site.
This story was originally published on June 2, 2017 at 6:11 p.m.