The Oil Drum

On Sunday May 14th (Mother's Day) 2006 it took me double the time and double the fare to travel from 86th St & Second Ave to New Brighton Staten Island. Normally it only takes 1.5 hrs and $2, but this weekend the NYC's transit system failed to deliver on its mission of moving people through the city efficiently for one $2 fare.

Gas is just about at $3/gallon at most stations in NYC for unleaded regular. Any plan seeking to insulate the city from rising energy prices from a transportation perspective will have to examine ferries. In addition to restoring NYC's ports, congestion pricing, bus rapid transit (BRT), more pedestrian friendly areas, more light rail, we really need to start rethinking the value of NYC's waterfront from a transportation perspective.

NY Waterways (map right) runs a whole privately funded system of ferries on the Hudson River. The problem on the NY side of is that few of these facilities are linked to good mass transit. Instead, the NY Waterways runs a fleet of private buses to key transportation hubs all around the city, but they get stuck in the same midtown traffic as all other city buses.