Ferries Hit by Winter Chill

By TED MANN

Officials who launched the city’s East River Ferry service last summer say they always expected ridership to dip in winter, as tourists dwindled and chilly temperatures made a $4 commute across open water less appealing to locals.

And it dipped significantly. Average daily ridership on the ferry fell by nearly 50% from its June launch to December, according to the most recent figures available from Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

At year-end, the service averaged about 1,500 one-way rides per weekday along the ferry route, which runs between Pier 11 at Wall Street and 34th street, making stops along the shores of Brooklyn and Queens. Passengers on other New York-area private ferries and water taxis also drop in the winter, some by as much as one-third or more.

Seven months into the ferry’s planned three-year trial run, overall ridership has far outpaced the city’s projections. But while the sharp seasonal decline reflects how popular the ferry was with tourists and weekend travelers, it also suggests the service is still struggling to catch on with regular commuters.

Unlike other local ferries that are integral parts of the commuter network from New Jersey and Rockland County into the city, the East River operation is still serving relatively small numbers of weekday commuters.

Also unlike the others, the East River service depends on a $3.1 million annual city subsidy. By the end of the pilot project, officials will have to decide if ridership justifies making it a permanent amenity for the fast-developing Brooklyn shore.

Staff from the New York City Economic Development Corp., which hired the private carrier New York Waterway to provide the ferry service, say it has been a success.

Offsetting the decline in ridership is the benefit the ferry offers to residents, particularly in North Brooklyn, where it provides an alternative to the overcrowded L train into Manhattan, and a boon for developers hoping to entice new residents to neighborhoods along the East River.

Among the surest signals of the ferry’s worth, said David Hopkins, a vice president in the EDC’s maritime department, are those from businesses and developers along the shoreline, in industrial neighborhoods of North Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Long Island City, including some areas which the city rezoned in 2005 to promote residential development.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Hopkins gestured from the open-air passenger deck of a ferry at the new pier and esplanade at India Street in Greenpoint, constructed by a developer hoping to build a 40-story residential tower on an adjoining plot of land.

“He spent several million dollars and does not yet have approval to build his buildings,” Mr. Hopkins said, referring to Jonathan Bernstein, the managing partner of developer Stiles Partners. Stiles received transferable building rights from its development of the piers, which will be used to win approval for the residential development, a project that has generated firm opposition from some neighbors.

Mr. Bernstein said in an interview that the ferry could boost foot traffic on the streets around his planned building and offer an alternative route to Manhattan. “It’s extremely beneficial for the city,” he said.

Some community leaders who support the ferry are pushing for change, especially on the all-important question of price. At $4 per ride, the East River Ferry is more expensive than the $2.25 base fare of MTA subways and buses, though cheaper than the MTA’s new $5.50 express bus service.

For a daily commuter who already shells out $104 to buy a monthly MetroCard, the $140 monthly rate for the ferry would more than double the cost of getting to work, said Lincoln Restler, a Democratic district leader whose territory includes the Williamsburg and Greenpoint shore, and who has advocated for better transit connections with Manhattan.

To Mr. Restler, the eventual resolution of the ferry’s price-point problem and its wintertime ridership drop-off is simple: merge it into the MTA, reducing the price for commuters and encouraging its use as a daily utility, not just a fair-weather option for days when the L train is packed or friends are in town.

“Ultimately, the rub here is the price point,” Mr. Restler said in a recent interview.

Part of the challenge, midway through a largely successful first year, is reinforcing that the ferry is here to stay, said Roland Lewis, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance.

“There is a natural rhythm,” Mr. Lewis said, referring to the wintertime decline in riders. Riders will be less likely to abandon the ferry once more substantial shelters are available to shield them from the elements, he said.

“Longevity and predictability is so important,” Mr. Lewis said. “We have to assure them that the ferry service will be there.”

But, he added, price will matter, too.

“This cannot be viewed as a luxury for people living in high-rises,” he said. “It has to be affordable to the average New Yorker.”

The MTA, meanwhile, faces significant financial burdens and is unlikely to embrace responsibility for a new service. An MTA spokesman declined to comment.

These are the questions the EDC is measuring, said Mr. Hopkins, who noted that operators will conduct a survey of ferry riders this spring to determine how best to tailor the ferry to suit their needs.

Even in December, the roughly 1,500 weekday riders who used the East River Ferry make it comparable in size to some other private ferry services that operate in the waters around New York City, according to the Port Authority, including those that run from Paulus Hook on the New Jersey shoreline to Pier 11 at Wall Street, and to the World Financial Center and West 39th Street landings. But those private carriers don’t operate with the same subsidy provided to the East River Ferry.

Those private carriers moved 28,000 passengers a day in 2011 between New York and commuter way points in New Jersey and Rockland County. (Those ferry numbers don’t include the granddaddy of them all: the free, publicly funded Staten Island Ferry, which moves 65,000 passengers a day.)

Total ridership since the ferry began revenue service in late June is over 550,000, according to the EDC. That included total weekend ridership of more than 46,500 people in July, and strong leisure use of the ferry through this year’s mild September and October, according to public figures.

Even in grayer, chillier weather, organizers say, a core group of commuters have flocked to the ferry boats, embracing the higher ticket price in exchange for a commute into Manhattan or downtown Brooklyn that is competitive on aesthetic terms—and even on timeliness–with the subway or the bus.

Ridership is “dramatically higher than anticipated,” said Steven Levin, a member of the City Council who represents Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Mr. Levin was unconcerned by the seasonal dip in ridership, which he said had been anticipated.

“There were a lot of folks using it in the summer for pleasure, for leisure,” Mr. Levin said. “Tourists were using it, and naturally that’s going to dip in winter months.”

“That was actually something that a lot of folks had seen as likely to happen, and it’s understandable. I think in future years, I’m hoping, we can entice people to ride it during the winter,” he said.

On a recent weekday morning, traffic was light but steady shortly after rush hour, as one of the three circulating ferries bounded uptown from Pier 11 to Brooklyn Bridge Park, under the bridge to two stops in Williamsburg before touching in Greenpoint and Long Island City. At the final stop, 34th St., under the elevated FDR Drive, a circulator bus waited to bring riders into Midtown.

Emily Elert, a freelance science writer, and a companion boarded with their bikes in downtown Brooklyn. They had ridden from their home in Crown Heights, and were each headed to jobs in Midtown. The commute is slightly shorter by water, Ms. Elert said, and slightly longer for her boyfriend. They didn’t commute by ferry every day, but had grown attached to it, save the days in the end of summer and early September when the ferry was crammed with other passengers.

The couple were relieved, they said, that there was three years’ of funding for the ferry in store, given the relatively empty cabin as the ferry approached 34th Street.

“When it’s empty like this, I’m always looking at the faces of the workers,” Ms. Elert said, “to see if they look worried.”