The ferry, which travels between Providence and Newport, goes under the Claiborne Pell Bridge.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / SANDOR BODO

PROVIDENCE — The state’s popular high-speed ferry from Providence to Newport, a breezy way to see the Bay from one end to the other, will end this fall, Rhode Island Public Transit Authority officials say.

The cause is the expiration of the last of a series of federal grants that the authority has used, sometimes imaginatively, to keep the seasonal service going.

The ferry service will resume May 16 after a winter break and make its last trips on Oct. 16, the authority said.

Since 2000, the ferry has offered a pleasant trip and a great view of the Bay in place of spending time on the highway and finding parking in Newport.

The ferry, the Ocean State, is a 68-foot catamaran that cruises at 30 knots, carries up to 146 passengers and leaves a kid-satisfying white wake. On a good day, people hustle to get a seat on its open upper deck.

The ferry service had a literally bumpy start. It initially docked at Point Street, inside the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier. That forced its skipper to make a dicey passage through one of the barrier’s openings, a space so narrow that the ferry hit the barrier.

In 2006, it moved to its current berth, Conley’s Wharf, off Allens Avenue near the head of Providence Harbor. The move got passengers better parking, cut the trip to Newport by 10 minutes, to about an hour, and avoids the hurricane barrier. In Newport Harbor, the ferry docks at Perrotti Park, on America’s Cup Avenue.

“We’ve been very pleased to see the positive reception” the ferry got from residents and tourists, said Alfred J. Moscola, general manager of RIPTA. Ridership hit 47,002 last year, its highest, he said.

The ferry service cuts pollution and traffic congestion because it replaces car trips, Moscola said. He said it has also supported the state’s economy by helping to attract tourists.

“We’re proud that we were able to secure federal funding for three consecutive three-year grant cycles,” Moscola said.

The ferry has, however, never been self-supporting. The adult fare this season will be $8 one way and $16 for a roundtrip. Meanwhile, the federal government is paying $575,000 per year, Moscola said, for a total of $5.17 million. The operating loss last year was $107,000, according to preliminary RIPTA figures.

With the state budget under pressure and RIPTA’s buses so full that some passengers are being left behind, the state isn’t likely to pick up the cost of running the ferry.

Determined to close growing budget deficits without raising taxes, Governor Carcieri has announced plans for broad cuts in social services, some of which would affect health insurance for children.

“If you can’t give medical care to kids,” one RIPTA official said, “why would you want a ferry?”

But even as it announced the ferry’s end, RIPTA hasn’t entirely given up on it. Henry Kinch, RIPTA’s deputy general manager, said he expects that legislation will be filed in the current General Assembly session to have the state assume the ferry’s cost. “I hope that people see the value in it,” and see the ferry as part of a range of transportation options that RIPTA should offer, he said.

The money for the ferry has come from a tongue-twisting source, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act/Congestion Mitigation Air Quality Program. (“Intermodal” translates roughly to providing different forms of transportation, preferably linked, such as RIPTA’s bus connections at both ends of the ferry route.)

The ferry service was intended to serve as a demonstration project for several programs, testing, measuring and evaluating while advancing worthy goals.

Mark Therrien, RIPTA’s assistant general manager for planning, development and grants, said the ferry financing has been justified during its three, three-year funding cycles as a commuter service, as mass transit that reduced traffic congestion in Newport, and as a means for comparing biodiesel, low-sulfur diesel fuel and conventional diesel fuel.

But those purposes will be fulfilled in 2008, he said, and efforts to get further financing from the Federal Highway Administration have failed.

blandis@projo.com