There has been a story in the local media about the Steamship Authority looking into adding a new boat to the Nantucket route. While some think this would solve the problem of an over-booked boat line, a new boat would likely cause more problems than it would solve. We already have too many cars on the island in the summer. The more goods we bring here in big trucks, the less likely we are to incentivize entrepreneurs to create home-grown options and solutions. We don’t need more industrial food to compete with the sustainable and better-for-us food grown on the island. We have an island that is in a full-on pursuit of more when a lot of the people who live and visit here could truly benefit from less.
Side note: I just read Hope Jahren’s book, The Story of More, and participated in a great discussion about it at ReMain. Check it out. It’s eye-opening and mind-blowing.
If you think about it, maybe having a finite number of spaces on a finite number of routes to the island is what is keeping the island from spiraling out of control completely? “No,” is also an option, no?
If you see a Steamship representative on the street or in the supermarket, let them know how you feel. Maybe, just maybe, we need to keep our limits and maybe create a few more? (Did I hear someone say “one car for every five people?”)