Dreamboat of the Delusional

Don't believe in time travel?  I didn't either, until once I visited New Paltz.

New Paltz is a college town stuck in the late '60s, early '70s.  Students there are still protesting the Vietnam War.  Tie-dyed t-shirts; peace symbols emblazoned on everything; co-eds sitting on curled up legs, with stringy hair and dirty, smelly bare feet; professors carrying their Little Red Books, images of Mao tattooed on their arms.

My late brother-in-law had taken me there, don't ask me why.  He was a throwback of sorts himself.  He resembled Jerry Garcia, but without the third trimester waistline, and when he volunteered to work a concession at Woodstock II to avoid paying the admission, he carried around an empty guitar case to complete the image and to get the double-take from all the young, unwashed hippie wannabes.

That was my trip to the past.  I've just sent my bugbot into the future to 2050--it could happen--to eavesdrop and transmit back to me this discussion among St Petersburg city commissioners.  Let's listen in....

"We have got to do something to take our game to the next level.  The way we are now we'll always be a little city, a petty city."

"I thought we achieved first-tier status when we finally completed our light rail system."

"Quite frankly, that hasn't worked out for us.  It ran $300 million over budget, it's bleeding us dry on operating and maintenance costs, and no one is riding it."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"Ferries!  That's the ticket!  Think about it--what does New York City have that we don't?  It has two airports; we have one on this side of the bay and Tampa International on the other.  It has rail; we have rail.  The one thing that sets it apart, that puts it over the top, is a ferry system."

"Ferries?  Where would we run them?"

"You don't get it.  It doesn't matter where they run or whether anyone would ride them, it only matters that we have them.  We need to show the country that we can run with the big dogs, and since the biggest dog of all has a ferry system, we have to have one, too."

"I don't know if we can sell ferries.  Our predecessors had a hell of a time selling light rail.  The only way they managed to get it approved was by underestimating the numbers and overestimating projected ridership."

"Yeah, they told voters it would cost $700 million for its 26-mile line from Clearwater to St Pete, and it ended up costing $1 billion!  And that was just for construction and start-up costs."

"And think about this--not one of the commissioners who supported it was reelected."

"But ferries are different.  I mean, the ocean is already there.  All we need to do is buy a couple of boats."

"And terminals at both ends, and hire crews, and set up a bureaucracy to handle the administrative end.  We're on the edge of a slippery slope, here.  I'm just sayin'...."

"No, what you're just saying is you're perfectly happy with the status quo, with us being on a par with, say, Naples or Miami.  What if they started ferry service and we didn't?  Mister Chairman, we cannot afford to sit back and lose the ferry race!"