The first shuttle unloaded visitors on the opposite side of the ferry square.
The walk to the cooperative lane was nearly twice as long as before.
Kileo cited safety and congestion.
Rehema did not investigate the claim herself.
Kassim took formal ownership of the route review because Mama Saada’s stall was directly affected.
“From this point, the ferry-safety finding is mine,” he said.
That removed a conflict no amount of good intention could erase.
Kassim placed pedestrian counters at several points. Pendo and a transport officer interviewed drivers.
“Did the ferry authority issue a safety instruction moving the stop?”
Three drivers said no. The notice came from the market association.
That did not automatically mean the move was improper. Drivers were not traffic engineers.
Kassim measured walking width, crossing conflict, emergency access, and peak flow.
The old cooperative lane did have a problem: vendors sometimes extended tables into the pedestrian path.
“That can be corrected through enforcement,” Kassim said.
The new drop point required visitors to cross a busier intersection and created a longer evacuation route.
His interim conclusion was carefully bounded:
**No demonstrated ferry-safety necessity for moving all tour drops. Temporary restoration recommended pending a joint traffic study and enforcement of pedestrian clearance.**
Kileo objected in writing.
“The association also manages visitor experience and commercial flow, not only ferry safety.”
Kassim accepted the limitation.
“Then do not cite ferry safety as the sole reason.”
He did not claim the association had no other commercial rationale.
Rehema supported the narrower finding even though a stronger statement would have helped her mother.
Kassim also made the temporary restoration conditional. If the later traffic study showed a genuine safety need, routes could change under published criteria.
Neutral access did not mean a permanent property right to a bus stop.
Then the weather warning arrived.
**Strong coastal storm expected. Ferry capacity reduced. All shuttle routes must be evacuation-ready within two hours.**
Kassim closed the pricing-route clipboard.
“Consumer dispute pauses.”
Kileo agreed immediately.
The association had six shuttles.
The cooperative had carts, food, cold storage, and local knowledge.
Guides had radios and group-management experience.
Rehema locked the complaint file and told Pendo not to collect opportunistic testimony during the emergency.
“Even if someone says something useful?”
“Especially then.”
They converted route maps into evacuation maps.
Kassim filed the route measurements under the ferry authority’s own safety record rather than inside Rehema’s complaint folder. The consumer case referenced only his finding number. That custody decision proved useful immediately when Kileo accused Rehema of using public authority for family benefit. Kassim could answer without asking her for evidence. Rehema also accepted his narrow wording: the move lacked a demonstrated ferry-safety necessity, not necessarily every possible commercial rationale. Precision cost her a stronger accusation but gave the finding institutional independence.
Before the storm warning arrived, Kassim sent the temporary-restoration recommendation to both the association and the cooperative with a forty-eight-hour comment window. Kileo’s objection was preserved beside it. That meant the route dispute had a record even if the emergency delayed the joint study. Rehema was relieved that the process no longer depended on her memory or her mother’s anger. If everyone returned after the storm with different stories about why the stop had moved, the written measurements and objections would still exist. The emergency could pause the dispute without erasing the state it had reached.
The argument over where tourists should be dropped had become a race to move people safely before the coast closed.