By Stephen Witt
May 19, 2008
[Source: Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill Courier]
Ferry service might return to Red Hook, an area underserved by mass transportation.The waterfront neighborhood, which was a stop for the New York City Water Taxi from March of last year to February 1 of this year, is being studied as a possible stop in a citywide […]
By Helen Klein
May 8, 2008
[Source: CourierLife Publications]
Ferry service is coming back to the Brooklyn Army Terminal.The service will be restored May 12th, as a stop on the new Rockaways to Manhattan route that the city is subsidizing as part of its five-borough ferry initiative announced earlier this year.Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine […]
By Ben Muessig
May 17, 2008
[Source: The Brooklyn Paper]
The new ferry service between Bay Ridge and the Lower Manhattan is a long way from being able to stay afloat without help from the city.
For the just-rechristened boat route to survive after its two-year, $1.1-million city subsidy runs out, 700 commuters will need to be riding it […]
By Ben Muessig
May 10, 2008
[Source: The Brooklyn Paper]
The Bloomberg Administration announced this week that it will provide more than $1 million in subsidies to bring ferry service back to Sunset Park next week.
Ferries will return to Brooklyn Army Terminal on May 12, Bloomberg said, three and a half months after New York Water Taxi terminated […]
A subsidized ferry route between southern Queens and Lower Manhattan, via Brooklyn, will begin next week to give commuters another option, the mayor and the City Council announced on Monday.
The two-year pilot Rockaway Service, which will be run by New York Water Taxi, will be financed using $1.1 million allocated by the City Council.
The new route, which begins on May 12, will run from Riis Landing in Breezy Point, Queens, to the Brooklyn Army Terminal to Pier 11 at Wall Street. It will run twice a day in each direction: 5:45 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. from Breezy Point, and 4:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. from Lower Manhattan. The trip will take about one hour each way. The cost will be $6 per trip.
Separately, New York Water Taxi will restart East River ferry service next month from Pier 11 and 34th Street to Long Island City, Queens, which it suspended in January because of lack of passengers and rising fuel costs. Service to South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will be restored when a new $1.25 million city-financed launch center being built at Schaefer Landing is completed, Water Taxi officials said in a statement.
“Ferry service will make the very difficult commute between the Rockaways and Manhattan much easier and less expensive,” said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. The service leaves from Riis Landing, in Queens, and is being provided by New York Water Taxi. Also along for the maiden voyage were Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., a council member from Queens, and Anthony D. Weiner, a congressman serving Brooklyn and Queens.
[Source: Brooklyn Daily Eagle]
Water Taxi Service Welcomed By BP Markowitz, Sen. Golden
By Tom Kane
SUNSET PARK — Well, finally. Bay Ridge and Sunset Park riders now have ferry service to Pier 11 in Downtown Manhattan near Wall Street … Again.
It started on a rainy Monday morning, a little late, but when Delia Vitale saw the boat heading towards us in the rain, she exclaimed, “Here it is!”
Vitale, who lives in Sea Gate and for the last three months has driven into Manhattan paying over $200 a week to park, was thrilled with the new service.
“They stopped in February, telling us that because of maintenance and inspections the boat would be out of the water indefinitely. I’m glad they’re back,” she said.
[Source: Columbia Daily Spectator]
A maritime evacuation plan for Manhattan announced last month, in which a fleet of small boats will be used to ferry people across the Hudson River to New Jersey in the event of a serious blackout or terrorist attack, has been dubbed a Dunkirk-esque plan by bloggers and social commentators.
Gothamist, a well-known New York City blog, noted shortly after the Trans-Hudson Emergency Transportation Plan was announced in early January that the officials who designed this plan seem to have emulated aspects of the Dunkirk evacuation with their proposal to utilize “small craft to move millions of people in the event of an emergency.” Similar claims have also been made by other bloggers.
The reference alludes to the 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk, France during which hundreds of thousands of trapped allied soldiers were ferried to safety across the English Channel by a hastily assembled fleet of 860 small fishing vessels and privately owned pleasure boats, pressed into service for the operation.
The Trans-Hudson plan, which was drawn up jointly by the Office of Emergency Management in New York City and Office of Emergency Management in New Jersey, will rely on over 100 private water taxis and dinner-cruise vessels, along with the larger Staten Island ferries, in order to quickly evacuate millions of New York workers across the Hudson River to a staging area in New Jersey’s Liberty State Park. The plan forms part of New York’s general area evacuation plan and was drawn up in response to the 2003 blackout in which the subway system closed down and thousands were stranded throughout the city.
[Source: Queens Times Ledger]
A pilot program to bring ferry service from the Rockaways to Manhattan will launch in the summer, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) said in her State of the City address last week.
The idea for Rockaways ferry service was born following a Council Transportation Committee hearing last year in Broad Channel, Quinn said, where the speaker, City Councilman Joseph Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) and Council Transportation Committee Chairman John Liu (D-Flushing) heard the community’s gripes about their two-hour commutes to Manhattan.
[…]
Under the city Economic Development Corporations request for bidders on the pilot program, those interested in providing ferry service would need to develop a plan that connects a point in the Rockaways to one in Lower Manhattan. The plans may include other stops on the peninsula or the Brooklyn waterfront.
[Source: Queens Gazette]
[…] She also announced an agreement with Mayor Michael Bloomberg to create a five-borough, year-round, comprehensive New York City ferry system.
Quinn said, “Imagine getting on a ferry in Hunts Point (The Bronx) for a day trip to Coney Island, or traveling from Brooklyn to Queens without waiting for the G train.” The Speaker said the plan would be one of the most significant transit initiatives in recent New York City history.
