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Harwich, Mass.-Based Transportation Firm Eyes Airport-Shuttle Route

Posted on: Thursday, 1 June 2006, 21:00 CDT

By David Schoetz, Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.

May 31--HARWICH -- They do bachelor parties and casino trips, wedding trolleys and prom season, luxury sedans and corporate junkets.

Now, a Harwich-based transportation company wants to do airport runs.

Cape Destinations, which offers private livery services and operates the Whoosh Trolley in Falmouth for the Cape's transit authority, is eyeing a shuttle route between Cape Cod and T.F. Green International Airport in Warwick, R.I., 13 miles south of Providence.

"In the end, we'd like to do it," said Jay Kavanaugh, co-owner of Cape Destinations. "But we have to make sure we're not going to step on anyone's toes."

The "toes" he was referring to belong to Peter Pan Bonanza, the major bus line traditionally in charge of routes from Falmouth to Providence and beyond. Though Peter Pan has no contractual monopoly on direct service to T.F. Green, the company has unofficial first dibs among interested carriers.

Peter Pan previously offered a T.F. Green stop but canceled the service in 2004 due to poor ridership.

Cape Destinations announced its interest in picking up the route a month after Peter Pan Vice President Michael Sharff told a roomful of Cape transit planners that his bus line had no interest in reviving the T.F. Green service.

Yesterday, Sharff said the company has not changed its position on the service, which he called "a losing financial proposition."

"Good luck to them," Sharff said when told of Cape Destinations' desire to run 22-passenger mini-coaches between Cape Cod and T.F. Green, a popular hub for Southwest Airlines that's nearly the same distance -- about 77 miles -- from Falmouth as Boston's Logan International Airport.

The group of Cape Cod transportation planners, lead by Gen. John Flanagan, chairman of the Falmouth Transportation Management Commission and a transportation logistics professor at Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, have been pushing for the T.F. Green route.

Demand for flying out of Providence has increased, they say, and stops along the route at the New Bedford ferry terminal and the Providence-Amtrak station would allow travelers to access different modes of transportation.

"We want to run that service," Flanagan said yesterday. If someone were to take a bus from the Cape to T.F. Green, Flanagan pointed out, it would require a complicated connection in Providence and would take more than four hours.

A company like Cape Destinations, he said, could likely offer a jitney trip in closer to two hours.

"The biggest thing is establishing reliability," said Peggy Garrahan, Kavanaugh's partner at Cape Destinations. The co-owners, who founded the company in 1998, hope to start off running three daily round trips between the Cape and T.F. Green.

Under their plan, a mid-Cape branch might connect with a Falmouth bus in Buzzards Bay. A single bus load then would head south, stopping in New Bedford, downtown Providence and ultimately arriving at the airport. The company would commit between 18 and 24 months to the service to determine its popularity.

Another factor that still may scare off Cape Destinations are the fees T.F. Green charges to transportation companies making airport pickups. The company hopes to strike a deal with the airport to pay a per passenger fee instead of a flat fee during the trial period.

The Cape Destinations owners could not quote a ticket price, but did say they hope to compete with the fares that the Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway Co. charges for its 16 daily roundtrips between the Cape and Logan.

Currently, an adult round-trip ticket from Hyannis costs $40.

A call to T.F. Green was not immediately returned, but Flanagan said the airport is "extremely supportive" about having a company make direct trips from the Cape, so much so that they may be willing to negotiate the pickup fees.

Flanagan also said that Thomas Cahir, the undersecretary in the state transportation office and a former state representative from Bourne, supports the idea. That, along with the interest from T.F. Green, could give Cape Destinations the approval required to run the service across the state line from Massachusetts into Rhode Island.

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To see more of the Cape Cod Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes.

Copyright (c) 2006, Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Cape Cod Times

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