This was the summer that towns along the Charles River were supposed to get access to a new transportation option: an electric ferry running from Watertown Square to North Station in Boston. It was intended to be a privately operated venture, with no financial support from the city or state.

The company, Wada Hoppah, attracted media coverage all summer and posted videos on its Instagram feed, touting water transport as an alternative to Boston traffic. Now, a week into fall, Wada Hoppah still has not carried its first paying passenger.

The biggest barrier to starting ferry service on the Charles is the Department of Conservation and Recreation, which has not yet given Wada Hoppah and its founder, Drew Rollert, the green light to use the docks the state agency manages along the river. Rollert told me in July that he expected approval by the end of that month.

A DCR spokesperson explained in a Sept. 18 email that they’ve met with the company to assess the boat’s “compatibility and accessibility at several DCR docks along the Charles River,” and that the agency is “continuing to work with the company and is reviewing its operations plan.” But the DCR did not respond to multiple follow-up questions about the specifics of what would be required to gain its approval. Rollert has been working on the ferry project since 2023.

He said the central issue is whether the docks must comply with Americans with Disabilities Act standards for accessibility. While many docks have ramps and can accommodate wheelchair users, and the Wada Hoppah vessel was designed to accommodate a wheelchair, only one dock on the Charles River, at Herter Park in Brighton, meets federal ADA standards, according to Rollert. Those standards are very specific about ramp slopes, widths, handrails and edge protection.

“Their whole thing right now is based around ADA compliance, and they’re saying, ’We need our docks to be ADA, or we don’t want anybody at all stopping there,’” Rollert said. The DCR spokesman did not respond to an inquiry about whether that is the agency’s position, or whether there is a plan to make its docks ADA compliant at some point in the future.

Rollert said the app WhereToWheel has evaluated the docks he plans to use and found that all but two of the docks — one in Boston and one in Cambridge — were accessible to wheelchair users. But ADA compliance is a more stringent standard than basic accessibility.

“DCR is going overboard,” said David Wieselmann, the founder of WhereToWheel, who said he visited docks with Rollert while using his own manual wheelchair. He said that aside from two of the docks, the rest “more than met my needs as a wheelchair user.”

Rollert points out that water taxis operating on Boston Harbor are not as accessible as his ferry will be — and that several MBTA subway and commuter rail stations are not accessible to travelers in wheelchairs.

The Charles River Watershed Association, a nonprofit that advocates for cleaner water, is one of Wada Hoppah’s financial sponsors.

“I’ve had numerous conversations with DCR staff, and I’m surprised and disappointed that (the ferry service is) still not approved,” said Emily Norton, the association’s executive director.

“I’m trying to be collaborative and not combative,” Rollert said, “but it seems like every time I get together with (DCR), it’s just combative from their end.”

He said that he has pointed out that a ferry service with a single boat that will only carry six passengers initially is a pilot test. He expects fares to range from $15 to $20. The service will run from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

“This isn’t a full-fledged ferry service with thousands of people getting on and off the docks,” he said. “The goal of a pilot is to test services, and then if the data comes back and it’s great, hopefully (we) scale up, and you know, have more zero-emissions ferries.”

“There’s so many cities on the East Coast that have waterways and rivers and coastal areas that would kill for an electric ferry,” he said, “and it’s like (we’re) arguing about not having a new zero-emissions bus service because the bus stop doesn’t have a roof.”

Does Rollert expect the service to start running sometime in 2026?

“I would absolutely like to,” he said.

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