Fairer ferry fares
All aboard Mayor de Blasio’s spectacular new ferry boats, rapidly connecting Manhattan’s East Side to north Brooklyn to Wall St. to south Brooklyn and out to the Rockaways with rides both speedy and civilized, for just $2.75. Did someone say “all”? And then some. So overwhelmed with popular demand are certain routes on sunny weekends — Rockaway Beach, anyone? — that hordes of disappointed would-be passengers have found themselves stranded at the dock. The city is chartering extra boats to handle the mobs, and upgrading orders for future vessels to fit in more seats.
Count us, early skeptics, pleasantly surprised by the popularity to date, and happy to see an indemand service scale up. But let’s not go overboard. The overwhelming success of the new ferries, run by the San Francisco company Hornblower, must be nurtured with a heavy helping of economic common sense.
Which is to say, with fares structured to ensure that tapped-out taxpayers aren’t throwing ever more money at subsidizing the rides of an ever-increasing contingent of pleasure cruisers, including who knows how many tourists.
To ride the 150-passenger ferries on a weekday is to witness a commuter transportation transformation — with employees from far-out Queens zipping to work at Brooklyn’s Lutheran Hospital and artsy Williamsburg turned into a sister village to Wall St.
The fresh possibilities for living and working in this increasingly tough-to-travel-around city are exhilarating, whether on an open deck up top or down below in a well-appointed cabin, and worth a hefty city subsidy for commuters. But how much?
Unwisely, the city committed out of the dock to a $2.75 fare (equal to a bus or subway ride) no matter who you are or when you ride, making no distinction between New Yorkers humping it to work on weekdays and visitors looking for a pretty peek of skyline.
Never mind all the fair-weather weekends, when throngs clamor to depart for Brooklyn Bridge Park, Governors Island and the Rockaways. Did we mention craft-beer taps on board?
You’re floating all those boats, Jane and Joe taxpayer.
The city’s tab for the burgeoning ferry service, already $300 million, can’t stretch much more.
What’s needed is a fare structure that doesn’t have taxpayers covering most of the cost to ride a New York Harbor party boat.
Our suggestion: Keep the $2.75 fare on weekdays, and for riders who buy them in blocks of 10 for use anytime.
Explore the more.
And by all means hike the single-ticket fare for weekend rides — just like the private ferry operators that preceded Hornblower did.
The city should have and could have foreseen the most excellent problem of too many riders for delightful boat jaunts — and shouldn’t waste time before setting the ship right. possibility of charging out-oftowners