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Ferries cross cultures
as well as channels

A LONG line of people waiting to board the ferry to the Statue of Liberty curled from a ticket booth and along a landscaped promenade. Tinny loudspeakers harshly repeated departure times, trip duration, restrictions, admonitions and all manner of directives for passengers.

Having spent hours the previous day being herded through sweltering corridors and cramped elevators for a few over-shoulders glimpses of Manhattan from the Empire State Building, another New York "visitor experience" promising more humbug didn't seem worth the bother or the $12 fare.

Not when just a quarter-mile stroll away was the Staten Island ferry, a free ride that would skim past the statue on its way to a part of the city I'd not seen before.

Though some of the passengers were tourists like me, most were no-nonsense commuters. They wore the impassive expressions urban dwellers adopt, stepping briskly on board from the unadorned station to claim inviolable space on benches little different from church pews. Many were sailing solo, but there were twosomes and groups whose conversations provided for interesting eavesdropping.

Only a half-hour across water, Staten Island seemed more like an insular town far from the whirl of the big city. In a small shop where a hoagie cost half of what you'd pay at a midtown Manhattan deli, the pony-tailed clerk remarked that "things here ain't the same as over there."

She was too busy slapping sandwiches together to expand on that, but in a few hours of wandering, I caught her drift. Even the commuters who hotfoot it onto the ferry slowed down on the other side, adjusting behavior to the different environs.

Like many Hawaii residents, I've been keen for a ferry to cruise the islands. The idea of steering the trusty Toyota onto a watercraft in Honolulu and driving off in Kona sounds great. Ever since the Superferry was declared financially and technically feasible two years ago, I've imagined how marvelous it would be to have an option to flying.

But, of course, reality has stepped in.

As with any human endeavor, there are worrisome consequences. Focus has chiefly been on environmental issues, as evident by a recent lawsuit seeking an assessment, especially because for the first time large numbers of motor vehicles will be able to travel freely from one island to another.

Conservation groups are unsettled. They know how destructive plant and animal pests can easily spread when just a few hikers walk from infested areas into native forests. Scraping boots clean is enough of a problem. Thousands of grooves and pukas in tires, bumpers and hubcaps magnify the difficulties of controlling inadvertent transfers of bad stuff from place to place.

Farmers and other agricultural interests have similar cause for concern as viruses now hemmed by the seas and cargo inspections can be transmitted just by one person tucking a bunch of bananas into the trunk of an Oldsmobile.

Another problem falls under "homeland security." While airports are heavily monitored, protection of ocean transportation has come up short. No threats on U.S. ferries have been reported, but federal authorities say there have been incidents where ships have been surveyed as potential targets and passenger ferries in other countries have been struck.

Other questions deal with harbor facilities crowded by commercial and recreational use and threats to marine life.

These problems aren't insurmountable. If Hawaii is to benefit from the numerous economic and social advantages ferries can bring, all are worth remedying.

One last thing, though. Separation by water has bred Staten Island a different disposition from Manhattan, just as it has for each island in our state. I hope the characteristics that make Kauai unlike Oahu and Hawaii unlike Maui won't be scrambled by too much familiarity. That would be a loss.

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