The last ferry of the evening departs Bramblegate Steps at 9:45 PM. By 9:30, on most nights, there is already a queue. They are not commuters — the commuters crossed hours ago, at 5:15 and 5:30 and 5:45, in the rhythmic pulse of a working day. The 9:45 queue is different. Late-shift dockworkers finishing at nine. Theatre patrons from Marchmont Street. A couple of restaurant staff from Threadneedle Street. A woman with a cello case who appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

They have all, at one time or another, missed the last crossing. The 10 PM service — added in the second week as a concession — fills reliably. After that, the options are a 3.2-kilometre walk to Coldharbour Viaduct, a hackney cab at night rates, or a long wait for the first morning ferry at six.

Beginning 7 April, there will be a better option. Ashwater River Services announced on Monday that the Thornhill Star will operate two additional evening crossings, at 10:30 PM and 11:15 PM, extending effective service to midnight. The extension is funded through a revised allocation from the emergency transport reserve — an additional 8,400 florins per month, approved by the Transit Authority on Friday.

Gwen Alderly, managing director of Ashwater River Services, said the decision reflected sustained demand. Monthly pass sales have reached 1,400 — a fourfold increase from the 340 sold in the first week of service. Daily ridership has stabilised at approximately 7,800 passengers, down from the 8,200 peak of launch day but consistent across the past three weeks.

“The ferry has become part of the city’s routine,” Alderly said. “People have adjusted their lives around it. The least we can do is match the hours to the lives.”

Captain Morris Aldgate, who has piloted the Thornhill Star since launch, will hand evening duties to a second captain — Eleanor Vane, 39, who has been operating the backup vessel Bramblegate Belle on standby since March. Vane, a former commercial tug pilot on the lower Ashwater, has made 14 relief crossings during peak hours and is, by Aldgate’s account, “the steadiest hand on the river after mine.”

The extension comes as the Fernwick Bridge repair timeline enters a critical phase. Formal bids from three engineering firms — Hallam & Stroud, Brannock Cable Works of Edgeminster, and Vandersteel Ironworks of the Ashford Republic — are due by 6 April. Chief Municipal Engineer Dorothea Kinnear has indicated that a contract decision is expected by month’s end, with cable replacement work beginning in May or June.

The full repair remains estimated at 8 to 12 months from commencement — meaning the ferry will likely operate well into 2027. At current rates, the total cost will exceed 3 million florins.

“Three million florins to carry people across a river,” said Councilman Voss, reached by telephone on Tuesday. “The bridge cost less to build in 1914. But the bridge is broken, the people need to cross, and the river does not care about budgets.”

The woman with the cello case — identified by ferry staff as a member of the Millgate Resonance Collective who rehearses at Bramblegate on Tuesday and Thursday evenings — was unavailable for comment.