PROVIDENCE –– State transit officials said yesterday that they will try to revive the Providence-to-Newport ferry, and one ferry operator said he’s interested.

The ferry service, for nine years a pleasant way to travel down Narragansett Bay, ended last October, apparently for good, when federal grants supporting it ran out. The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, in the midst of its own financial crisis, said it didn’t have enough money to make up the roughly $450,000 federal subsidy.

Since then, not much has changed on RIPTA’s end. The authority is still expecting multimillion-dollar budget deficits this fiscal year and next. But a number of state legislators, including Senate President M. Theresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, say they want the service restored.

In addition, Keith W. Stokes, executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce, urged RIPTA’s board of directors to restore the ferry service. Representatives from Providence groups agreed and said the state Department of Transportation should contribute property it owns at India Point, including the site of the former Shooter’s Waterfront Cafe, for a ferry terminal.

In a letter to the board, the Friends of India Point Park said a terminal could become a meeting place for an assortment of transportation: the ferry, the East Bay Bike Path and RIPTA’s trolley service. It would also, supporters said, help revive the city’s centuries-old maritime tradition.

RIPTA “should do everything in its power” to restore the ferry, said Arria C. Bilodeau, co-chair of the group Head of the Bay Gateway.

The board decided to issue two requests for proposals from ferry operators. One would ask for ferry service plans that the operators say would work economically without a government subsidy. The other would describe a ferry service plan and see what subsidy the operators say would be needed to run it.

RIPTA officials said they think that operating the same service as last year, without a subsidy, would mean a ticket price of $20 to $25 per trip, compared with $12 last year. No subsidy, they said, would probably mean a short season and few trips per day.

Rick Nolan, one of the owners of Boston Harbor Cruises, said in a telephone interview that he would like to see RIPTA’s request for proposals when it’s available. His family company operates 20 boats, including harbor cruise vessels and a pair of commuter lines, one from Hingham and the other from Charlestown, to Boston for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Nolan’s company also operated the first Providence-to-Newport ferry service in 2000.

“We’d be more than interested in looking at anything from RIPTA and seeing if we can make economic sense of it,” he said.

But RIPTA board member Edward J. Field pointed to a continuing problem. Despite all the enthusiasm for ferry service, Field said, “I haven’t heard anybody come forward and say where we’re going to get the subsidy money.”

blandis@projo.com