Poor research. The 250,000 number was “bookings”, not ridership. The Supreme Court decision was not about the environment, as you implied. The Supreme Court ruled that the special law that allowed this one company to operate was unconstitutional. Your statement that other shippers do not have to comply with the same laws is not true. Young Bros. confirmed that they do have to comply. In any case, the ferry was not tariffed as a freight operation, nor is it a cruise ship. Its tariff is for passenger services.

Had the ferry company complied with state law it would likely be sailing today, and its mostly part-time employees would still be employed. Though the jobs were not great jobs, in today's economy, any job is important. They lost theirs not because of environmentalists or a pesky court, but because of how the company, the governor, and the state legislature chose to proceed.

The governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, broke the law by exempting the Superferry from our environmental laws illegally. That was the first unanimous Supreme Court decision (August 2007).

Instead of obeying the law, she then called a special session of the Legislature to override the environmental law, but that law (Act 2) was declared unconstitutional. That was the second Supreme Court unanimous decision (March 2009).

The case was not about whether the Superferry was a good idea for Hawaii – it was about following the law. If they had done the required environmental survey when they first approached the state, none of this would have happened.

There were lots of losers in this fiasco. The winner? The rule of law.

I think that before applying ferry freight services , it should always be monitored properly to see if it is capable of providing safe freight shipping services or not.