In June 2016, the NYC Economic Development Corporation began working on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to expand the ferries destinations along with creating new boats to fit the new plan. The New York City Economic Development Corporation is a city-owned, not-for-profit company that invests money into projects around the five boroughs. Its main goals include increasing economic development, helping small businesses, and leveraging city assets. The EDC’s support of the ferry plan covered the creation of new ports, contracts with private owners, building of new boats and construction prices will cost $325 million with the city contributing an additional $10 to $20 million dollars per year. The ferry would have four new routes by 2017 and two additions ones by 2018, making an estimated 4.6 million trips annually. The EDC also stressed that about 550,000 people live about a half-mile from each new landing site that will be built for the project, and that the cost of a ferry ride would be $2.75 – the same as the subway.
While the ferry plan seemed appealing on paper, many stakeholders were not as enthusiastic as the Mayor’s Office. The cost of the project was a particular concern, especially with so many other costly repairs compounding across the city’s infrastructure. Currently, the ferry only carries about 57,000 passengers a week, where the subway carries on average 5.7 million passengers daily. Policy experts and riders alike expressed concern about investing in the ferry when the subway has a fair amount of repairs to which those investments could be directed. Indeed, Henry Grabar of Slate Magazine called the idea of the ferry substituting the subway “ludicrous.”
The ferry system is flawed in a few major ways; particularly, its environmental impact. The mandatory Environment Impact Study (EIS) for the ferry project states that ferry landings would “result in new mobile sources of [air] pollution.” Geographers Susan Hanson and Genevieve Giuliano underscore in their anthology The Geography of Urban Transportation that “[t]ransportation planners must evaluate long-range plans based on tons of air pollutant emissions.” The docks created for the new ferry system are placed in areas that are already under high air pollution conditions; however, the EIS only briefly mentioned the potential for increased pollution. Even the Draft Scope of Work section of the document states: “The Pier 11/Wall Street and Midtown/East 34th Street terminals would not be well represented by the representative modeling protocol due to factors such as existing service, frequency of proposed service, and complex site geometry.” The 34th Street Terminal is already an extremely polluted area that will only increase in pollution with the ferry project. It is very concerning that this area specifically will not be able to receive sufficient examination and care. Despite these environmental concerns, the ferry system completed the first phase of its construction.
The ferry system is limited in the options it has to transport citizens from one destination to another. Among other factors, unpredictable weather can delay or limit the number of trips the ferry can take over the seasons. As transportation scholar William Black elaborates in his 2010 book Sustainable Transportation, when ridership slows due to variable factors, the city loses revenue; weather conditions can also lead to damaged boats and terminals, incurring even more expenses for the city.
Given these expenses – including maintenance and operating costs – it is difficult to justify the cost-benefit ratio of continuing investment in the ferry project. Policymakers and NYC stakeholders should focus their investment and attention on the issues facing the subway, buses, and other heavily-trafficked public transportation methods, rather than creating alternatives that do not significantly alleviate the burdens on NYC’s existing infrastructure.