New York City Mayor announces a dramatic expansion of metropolitan ferry services

In his February State of the City address, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a significant expansion of passenger ferry services across the five City boroughs.  This announcement marked the successful culmination of several years of ferry planning services by Steer Davies Gleave for the City.

Since 2013, Steer Davies Gleave has worked closely with New York City to assess the viability of expanding the Citywide Ferry Service, an existing and successful ferry service that links Midtown and Lower Manhattan to various locations in Brooklyn and Queens.  SDG analyzed a series of potential new ferry services and landing locations, developing estimates of ridership, revenue and other metrics for each of them.

Working closely with the City, we assessed potential landing locations against a series of objectives, such as increasing the accessibility of waterfront locations poorly served by existing transit, relieving congestion and helping to encourage the on-going use of currently underused waterfront locations.

Based on this analysis, the City has now decided on a dramatic expansion of ferry service and a bold new plan that reduces ferry fares in order to increase ridership and reduce per-passenger operating subsidies.

The expanded Citywide Ferry Service  “will knit together existing East River routes with new landings and services to Astoria, the Rockaways, South Brooklyn, Soundview and the Lower East Side" the Mayor declared.  It was also announced that the ferries will be run and funded by the City with operating support and a $55 million capital commitment.  Some routes are expected to begin service in 2017, and fares for the system will be the same as the cost of a subway or bus ride.  The Mayor’s office also commented that further expansion to Stapleton and Coney Island will constitute a second phase of expansion, pending additional funding.