Are the Piney Point-to-Virginia and Calvert-to-Eastern Shore studies publicly available? Although I don't see how either could be economically viable, data could change my mind.
The PP to VA route never had a study that was made public..it was an assumed-risk proposal where the owner/operator, who had two smallish ferries, recently freed up from temporary service in the aftermath of Katrina, was going to assume all the risk and expense, except for the cost of the actual physical landings (a simple concrete shore structure that the ferry drops it's ramp on).
The extensive studies commissioned by VDOT are (or at least, were, for the most part), publicly available. I'll see if the link to those archives still works and post it here if it does. Point: Calvert-to-Eastern shore options were
not found to be viable as "stand alone" operations. Connections like that were only viable as feeder or ancillary routes as part of the larger system model. In another interesting and, for my business, disappointing, twist, none of the the route studies for the lower Chesapeake that proposed high-speed ferries (Incat or similar design) proved viable. The economically viable solutions (minimum to no subsidies) were based on very cheap and slow ferry technology.
Now that's thinking outside of the box!