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In her annual State of the City address delivered last week at City Hall, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced that with the help of Mayor Mike Bloomberg the City will begin developing a comprehensive five-borough, year-round ferry service.
“While we boast the most extensive transportation system in the world – moving more than 1.5 billion people last year – some of our neighborhoods still lack the basic transportation infrastructure to serve a growing City,” Quinn noted.
The 2009 mayoral candidate called it “an idea that came straight from listening to New Yorkers” and will ultimately be “one of the most significant transit initiatives in recent New York City history.”
The plan for citywide ferry service was sparked after a hearing Quinn attended early last year in Broad Channel with Councilmen Joe Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) and John Liu (D-Flushing), chairman of the Council’s Transportation Committee. Local residents voiced frustration about extended commute times, so Quinn and the Council began exploring the feasibility of a ferry service for the Rockaways. Bloomberg agreed to allocate funds for a two-year pilot program that would be run by the City’s Economic Development Corporation.
“And that service should be up and running by this summer,” Quinn reported last week.
Addabbo, who sits on the Council’s Transportation Committee, has long advocated for a ferry service for Southern Queens.
“As you go south in the borough,” he said, “the transportation gets worse.”
Addabbo explained that his constituents have been consistently complaining about hour-plus commute times to Manhattan.
He said the Rockaway ferry, which would make a stop in Brooklyn before sailing to downtown Manhattan, is “long overdue” and would boost tourism in addition to expediting daily commutes.
“If the price is comparable to the express bus, and it’s a reliable service, I think it’s going to be a successful one,” Addabbo posited.
The EDC is currently vetting proposals from prospective ferry carriers for the Rockaway line.
In her speech, Quinn touted the five-borough ferry plan as one that would utilize the City’s waterways to alleviate some stressful commutes, create jobs and enhance infrastructure.
“Imagine getting on a ferry in Hunts Point for a day trip to Coney Island; or commuting from Astoria to downtown without having to brave the traffic at the Triborough Bridge; or traveling from Brooklyn to Queens…without waiting for the G train,” she said.
Addabbo said many details need to be worked out, but large-scale ferry service in New York City is realistic.
“Every borough pretty much is surrounded or has access to some mode of using the waterways,” he said. “This multi-borough run provides another alternative for people to commute into the City, and utilizes our waterways, which are very important.”
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