T.F. Green/Amtrak Express imminent
by Joseph SantangeloNew for 2008 will be express bus service between Cape Cod and Providence.
Starting in April, the Cape Cod Express to Providence, or CAPEX for short, will run from Exit 10, Exit 6 and Sagamore commuter lots to downtown Providence and T.F. Green Airport in Warwick.
On the return trip, CAPEX will stop in the New Bedford and Wareham areas to pick up workers bound for Cape Cod jobs.
Initially, three to six buses a day will leave beginning in the early morning hours to link with departing flights/passenger trains and return in the afternoon and evening.
It is a new service from Cape Destinations, a 10-year-old ground transportation company operating limousines, trolleys, sedans, minicoaches and full-size tour buses.
Fares and schedule information will be posted at capedestinations.com. Tickets will be sold online or onboard from the drivers. Commuter discount books also will be available.
“Originally, we were trying to find a little startup funding from state or federal funds,” said Peggy Garrahan, founder with Jay Kavanaugh of Cape Destinations. “After spending two years talking to all the people involved, we sat down here with our drivers and decided to just go for it. The market is out there.”
In the process, CAPEX will co-market with Amtrak, the national passenger railroad, so travelers bound to Cape Cod can ride the train from New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities. Amtrak summer service from New York to Cape Cod ended a decade ago.
“A lot of people want to go to New York, and right now you just can’t get there from here,” said Kavanaugh.
“A lot of people would use T.F. Green and Amtrak in a minute, if they could just get there easily,” he added. Cape Destinations will make the 90-mile trip in less than two hours.
A $225.5 million intermodal rail station, 1,250-foot skywalk and four-level garage is scheduled to open on the Northeast Corridor rail line at T.F. Green Airport in 2009. Then, Cape Destinations may make that facility its primary rail-air terminus for the Providence area.
While restaurants and hotels have periodically bused in workers from off-Cape, Garrahan and Kavanaugh see worker transportation onto the Cape as a growth market.
Garrahan said expanding the number of reverse commuters to the Cape will help Cape businesses to hire employees, despite chronic shortages of local workforce housing and obstacles to hiring foreign temporary workers.
An alternative to the H2B visa problem may be to look closer to home for employees. There are many areas, such as Fall River and New Bedford, with an available workforce. These workers could be the answer to Cape Cod’s employee shortage, and CAPEX may be the answer to getting them here. Cape Destinations has already received several calls from local chambers and businesses on the possibility of transporting employees to and from Cape Cod. The opportunity to utilize a Massachusetts labor force offers many benefits over foreign workers – no local housing needed, no visas required, and the money is staying in Massachusetts.
With a fleet of 35 vehicles, including coaches carrying up to 47 riders, Cape Destinations can vary its equipment with the season and the demand.
Among other services, Cape Destinations operates a seasonal Whoosh trolley carrying about 25,000 to 30,000 passengers in the Falmouth area and a Hyannis shuttle that began in the summer of 2007 with about 5,000 passengers.
It has handled a variety of corporate, wedding, tourist, airport limo and school sports team transportation since 1998.
Published in Cape Business January/February 2008
Joseph Santangelo Joseph Santangelo has been a statehouse bureau chief, a corporate executive and currently works for the Connecticut Legislature. 
Cape Business Newsletters
Keep up with the latest issues affecting your business and your life! To sign up for any of the Cape Business newsletters, click here.