Those stories of ferry service coming to Greenpoint and North Williamsburg as soon as May were pretty close! The New York City Economic Development Corporation is expected to pass a vote today to award a contract to BillyBey, a division of New York Waterway, to run a seven-stop ferry route that ranges from Long Island City to the Fulton Ferry landing with stops at Pier 11 in the Financial District, East 34th Street, south and north Williamsburg and India Street in Greenpoint. The service is expected to start in June.
This is by no means the city's first attempt to get people to use ferries on the East River to get to Manhattan, but the city is hoping that the more "transit-like routing" of this latest scheme will bring in more riders. Plus, the (subsidized) pricing, ain't bad!
Passengers will pay $3 or $5.50 a ride, depending on the "price zone" they are travelling in. The northern part of Williamsburg is the dividing line, so a trip from Greenpoint to 34th Street, for instance would be $3, while a trip from Greenpoint to Pier 11 would be $5.50. Meanwhile, bikes will be allowed onboard and, at rush hours, the service will also run a free bus running across Midtown (with stops at Grand Central and Bryant Park).
The new service is expected to run daily from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends. During rush hours it will run both ways roughly every 20 minutes. Other times it will run closer to every half-hour (and even less frequently in the winter). In the summer the ferries will also stop at a pier near Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and on Fridays it is expected to also make runs to Governors Island.
One company that isn't happy about the new ferry? New York Water Taxi, which already runs an East River ferry service and also bid for the project (and its $9 million in subsidies). It is unclear if they will drop their current East River routes in response to the new ferry, but the Post certainly thinks they will.
Does this mean ferries aren't just for Staten Islanders anymore? Maybe?
