Boat? Car?...Tour Bus!

Tourists will be able to roll through Harvard Square in style this summer if plans go through for double-decker bus and amphibious vehicle tours.

While the double-decker bus tours have already won approval from the city, opposition from community activists has so far clipped the wings of the amphibious vehicle plans.

Erroll Tyler wants to conduct tours with two Hydra-terra vehicles, which are similar to the duck boats used in Boston and other cities.

His vehicles will travel along Massachusetts Ave., through Harvard Square, down John F. Kennedy St., and then onto Western Ave, before passing through Central Square, and finally inserting into the water at the Museum of Science.

Cambridge advocates worry about the effect on their neighborhood,

“Duck boats look like tanks. The effect is very jarring,” said Jinny Nathans, president of the Harvard Square Defense Fund, which is opposing the proposal.

But Tyler insisted that the Hydra-terras were not duck boats.

“Duck boats are military vehicles,” Tyler said, referring to the DUKW landing craft leftover from World War II. “These are amphibious vehicles . . .  that are licensed as buses. They do not make any more noise than other vehicles on the road... These [vehicles] are state of the art.”

The Square Defense Fund distributed flyers along the route in an attempt to prevent Tyler’s new proposal from making a splash.

According to Nathans, at least 100 residents complained to the Cambridge License Commission, which heard Tyler’s request on Jan. 29.

Executive Director of the Licence Commission Richard V. Scali said that Tyler asked that the commission to hold offf on voting on the request so that Tyler could amend the route and get rights to use the Charles River.

“He’s supposed to come back in a month,” Scali said.

Cambridge Office of Tourism Executive Director Robyn M. Thieringer said that she was worried Tyler had not been forthcoming enough with his plan.

“We have genuine concerns. I’m not strongly against [the proposal] but until I hear more [I can’t support it]. He has to get answers to some questions,” she said.

Nathans emphasized that the concern with the amphibious vehicles was not just a matter of the route.

“In a way the routes don’t matter,” she said. “It comes down to the type of vehicle and the number of trips.”

But Tyler said that he would only use two Hydra-terras and that each would make three two-hour trips a day. He added that the vehicles would only travel on major roads and would avoid elementary schools.

ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

Meanwhile, the double-decker bus plan is speeding ahead.

Russell G. Cushman, who is the president of the Charles Riverboat Company, said that he will offer the bus tours separately and in conjunction with his company’s boat tours on the Charles River.

“We’ll run one bus every hour [starting in late April] until summer, when we’ll run two buses, one every half-hour,” he said.

Cushman said that the guided bus tours will run on a continuous loop.  The buses will stop across from Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square, then weave through the Harvard campus, cross the Harvard Bridge, do a short spin in Boston, and then go to the CambridgeSide Galleria Mall. The loop will last one hour.

Thieringer praised the route as a supplement for public transportation.

“It has always been a challenge to get people from Harvard Square to the Galleria on public transportation,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a good addition to the city, a nice link.”

Cushman has purchased two red double-decker buses—a 1963 Routemaster and a 1964 Routemaster—and hopes to purchase more. Both buses once cruised the streets of London before coming to New England.

Cushman said that last year he used the buses for private group tours and charters. He added that he will use them for those purposes this year, as well, but because the buses have open tops, the tours will only run from April to October. “The real charm of the buses, even though it’s a great loop, the real fun is riding on top and that wouldn’t be as enjoyable out of season,” Cushman said.

Harvard Square Business Association Executive Director Robin Lapidus praised the uniqueness of the double-decker buses and predicted that they would be used.

“The red tour buses are unlike anything else in New England. They’ll stand out,” she said.

Nathans agreed and said that Cushman had made a concerted effort to get community input for his plan.

“He came in and talked to the tourism board. He did everything right. He talked to all the constituencies. He met with the Defense Fund several times.

He addressed all the issues we raised,” she said.

But Tyler said that he did not understand why community groups opposed his proposal while they supported Cushman’s.

“Double-decker buses are much larger than our vehicles,” he said. “We only want to license two vehicles.”

Tyler insisted that Hydra-terra tours would have positive ramifications for the area.

“This is going to benefit the community in the long-run,” he said. “We are going to employ people. We’re about to have something unique. We’re not coming to steal from the community but to strengthen it.” Tyler added that he plans to invest corporate funds and donate the interest to local groups.

And he said that with the completion of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, there would be enough tourism for both the double-decker buses and the Hydra-terras.

“Competition is healthy,” Tyler said. “[The Hydra-terras] will have no impact on [Cushman’s] business. We’re going to be flooded with tourists and we need to have the facilities to accommodate them.”

Yet for all its apparent novelty, Tyler’s idea is not a new one. Cindy Brown, general manager of Boston Duck Tours said that when her company first opened in the early 1990s it wanted to launch a duck boat tour through Harvard Square, but the idea was shot down by residents.

“Folks in that area voted us down,” she said.

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.