East River Ferries

For the past year, I’ve been a skeptic when it comes to the East River Ferry plan. The city is essentially forking over $9 million over three years for what I believed to be a novelty act. The city’s waterfront is too removed from population and job centers to provide an adequate route for most commuters. Furthermore, the ferries aren’t the speediest of vessels; the rides during the winter can be cold; and the fare system had nothing to do with the rest of the city’s MTA-run transit network.

After a mild winter that saw East River ferry ridership top expectations by over 100 percent — ridership last week cleared 19,000 vs. an estimated 8900 trips — the city is trying to solve that last problem. As DNA Info notes, officials are attempting to convince the MTA and ferry operators to find a way to make MetroCards work for ferry fare payments. Jill Colvin has more:

Advocates and council members said they believe the numbers would soar even higher if commuters could more easily transfer to buses and subways and pay their $4 fares with a simple MetroCard swipe, just like travelers on JFK’s AirTrain and the PATH trains.

Tim Sullivan, a senior policy advisor to Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, said the city is already exploring the MetroCard idea. “We’d like to see if we can apply that to the ferry system as well,” he said.

The MTA confimed it has been engaged in preliminary talks about integrating ferries with the rest of the city’s transit system, but it is not clear if it would work with unlimited MetroCards. Roland Lewis, president of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, agreed that allowing customers to pay for ferries with the same MetroCard as they can use to pay for other forms of public transportation would be a major boost.

The key here though isn’t just allowing riders to use their MetroCards to pay; it also involves integrating ferry service as a part of the free transfer system so that riders can pay to use the ferry and get a subway transfer out of it or vice versa. Such an arrangement would solve the problem of a two-fare system currently in place today.

Of course, such a transfer solve only one problem facing the ferries. Right now, despite a $3 million annual subsidy and higher-than-expected ridership, the operators are still losing money. Billybey Ferry Company asked for a higher subsidy late last year, and the owners are not expecting the same ridership bump every winter. With a goal of reducing the subsidy to $0, the company may need to raise fares precipitously over the coming years.

So then can we integrate the ferries in with the MTA’s fare payment system? It needs to happen, but it’s not as easy as just asking nicely.

The Long Island City ferry stop awaits some passengers. (Photo by East River Ferry on flickr)

When it comes to media coverage, timing is everything, and that old adage certainly held true for the launch of the East River Ferry service last month. When New York Waterway launched its service — free for the first two weeks — riders and the press came out in droves, but now that the subsidized service is losing passengers, its decline has escaped much notice. It shouldn’t though.

The first stories that came out of the media frenzy surrounding the launch were about as glowing as expected. Adriane Quinlan liveblogged a day on the free ferries, and she spoke with some folks who were just joyriding and others who claimed they would take it. The resulting article that appeared in the paper was just as glowing, and others had similarly praising coverage. (Village Voice, Brooklyn Eagle, WCBS)

The initial coverage had a common theme: The ferries aren’t like the subways. They meander in open-air spaces on the water. They don’t suffer from the crowds of the 4 train or the inconsistencies of the L train. It is a more civilized way to travel. That narrative, of course, misses the fact that nearly all of Manhattan and nearly all of Brooklyn is inaccesible from the waterfront without additional subway rides. Once the ferry started charging a $4 fare, I figured ridership would drop.

It did, and precipitously. After notching over 10,000 riders per weekday during the free period, the ferry service didn’t even generate that many passengers over the first three days of paid rides. The Brooklyn Paper tried to spin it as a success. “I would call this a roaring success,” Seth Pinsky from the city’s Economic Development Corporation said. With 2750 riders on a Tuesday — or approximately three mostly full subway trains worth of riders — the bar for success is a low one indeed.

Earlier this week, The Post ran a short piece on the declining ridership. They were the only major New York City newspaper to do so because it’s simply not a novelty anymore. Failing, subsidized ferry services are the norm in New York City. New York Water Taxi couldn’t support a profitable venture because commuters found the ferries slow, inconvenient and, during the winter months, cold. Even with $3 million per year in city subsidies, the ferry service won’t stay afloat if ridership continues to drop. If fewer than 3000 commuters will take the boats in late June, how many are going to ride in December with a wind whipping across the East River?

In theory, ferries are a great idea for New York City, but these East River routes, heavily trafficked by surface transit and subways, aren’t ideal. It is, as commuters have noted, a slow road that lags behind bikes and trains for travel time. It is also isn’t integrated into New York’s vast and complex transit network. A MetroCard swipe with a free transfer would be far more convenient than another fare that drops most riders off nowhere near a connecting subway.

Better options would ferry service would have focused on the true problem commutes. A ferry from the Rockaways to Lower Manhattan or Bay Ridge to Wall Street would have the potential to cut travel times for many commuters left stranded are the wrong ends of slow subway routes. For now, though, this yuppie-centric East River diversion will continue, with city subsidies, to represent the poor planning that goes into new interborough transit routing.

The Long Island City ferry stop awaits some passengers. (Photo by East River Ferry on flickr)

Pardon me if I don’t immediately jump for joy over the city’s announcement that regular, year-long East River ferry service is set to debut on June 13. We’ve been down this road too many times before to think that this time will be any different from the last. We know what happens when the city starts subsidizing gimmicky transit options in the hopes of “revitalizing” the waterfront or encouraging creative travel. It hasn’t worked then, and for the same reasons, it’s going to face an uphill battle now.

Before I delve into my pessimism, the details: The idea of an East River ferry service has been percolating since last summer, and while the price will be higher than initial proposed, the details remain the same. The ferries will run a seven-stop route on a regular schedule with pick-ups and drop-offs in Midtown, Long Island City, Greenpoint, north and south Williamsburg, Dumbo and Wall Street. Boats will run every 20 minutes during peak hours and every 30 minutes off-peak. On the weekends, the route will include a stop at Governor’s Island and operate every 35 minutes from April to October and once an hour during the winter.

For Midtown-bound passengers, a free bus will provide access into the heart of Manhattan. Check out the map right here. If all goes well, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said, the route will expand to include the Bronx, Roosevelt Island and perhaps the Hudson River side of Manhattan as well.

City officials are excited about the new transportation offering. “It will spur economic development on both sides of the river with literally thousands of residents within walking distance of the neighborhoods in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan being able to reap the benefits of this new service,” Seth Pinsky, president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation said.

The city, meanwhile, is banking a good amount of money on this project. Fares will be kept relatively low as one ride will cost $4, an unlimited day’s worth of travel $12 and a monthly pass $140 as the city is subsidizing the ferries. New York will pour $9 million into the service over the next three years and has already committed $10 million in upgrades for piers in Queens and Brooklyn. (For a closer look at the newly renovated piers, check out coverage from The L Magazine.)

So what then are the problems? Besides the fact that I’m skeptical of the city’s investment — $19 million could have saved a good number of bus routes — the plan seems to be overly enthusiastic and divorced from reality. We don’t need better service for people close to the waterfront, and this seems to be yet another example of misplaced transportation priorities. Let’s run ’em down.

Regularity and Popularity of Service. Through a combination of design and planning, New York’s waterfronts aren’t very populous. Long the purview of industry, only in recent years have waterfront developments sprung up on the east side of the East River, and those developments have catered to distinctly upper class residents. Condos in Dumbo and Williamsburg do not come cheap, and these areas are relatively transit-accessible already. I question if we truly need ferry service that runs more frequently than some bus routes servicing some relatively lower-density, transit-rich neighborhoods.

All in all, Greenpointers who work in Midtown stand to benefit the most simply because it right now takes a while for them to get there. A direct ferry service would be a big boon for that neighborhood, but the other stops in Queens and Brooklyn likely do not need three ferries an hour for 14 hours a day.

Waterfront Access. Again, it’s worth reflecting on the city’s waterfront access. It isn’t great right now, and not that many people live close to the edge of the water. If my choice is between a 10-minute walk to the F in Dumbo or a 10-minute walk to a Ferry that still has to make five more stops before landing at 34th St. and the East River, it’s not a tough decision for any commuter in a hurry. The free bus on the Manhattan side is a welcome perk, but it creates a two-seat ride through some heavily congested areas of the city.

Targeted Underserved Areas. If the city has only a limited amount of money to invest on transit right now, it should spend it with an eye toward the underserved. Here, only Greenpoint kinda, sorta fits the bill as Long Island City, Williamsburg and Dumbo enjoy subway coverage. The money would be better spent improving transit for those who live far away from the city’s central business district or on improving access to non-Manhattan job hubs in the other boroughs.

Acknowledging King MetroCard. When it comes to travel in New York City, the MetroCard is king, and the sooner the city realizes that fact, the better. With the ferry service’s fare structure, riders will have to pay a $4 one-way fare (or a bulk ride option) to take the boat. If they have to go to or from the ferry stops, they’ll have to pay another fare for the connecting subway or bus. The city should figure out a way to provide free transfers between the ferry and MTA-operated transit routes, but stubbornness and territorialism rule the day when it comes to inter-agency cooperation.

Ultimately, East River ferry service isn’t doomed to fail. It is, after all, one of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s transportation goals, but it seems to be a misguided one at a time when we desperately need true leadership on real issues surrounding mass transit in New York City.