More Bad News About Water Taxi Service to Brooklyn
A month ago The Times wrote a piece about the precarious future of New York Water Taxi and the implications for Brooklynites who’d put down roots on the waterfront based on assurances from the city that the ferry service would always be there. Yesterday, The Brooklyn Paper wrote a pretty darn similar article, but with…
A month ago The Times wrote a piece about the precarious future of New York Water Taxi and the implications for Brooklynites who’d put down roots on the waterfront based on assurances from the city that the ferry service would always be there. Yesterday, The Brooklyn Paper wrote a pretty darn similar article, but with some different characters. The people most screwed by a the end of water taxi service would most certainly be those who live at Schaeffer Landing in South Williamsburg (“The ferry gets me to work in the same amount of time it would take me to walk to the train,” one Schaefer dweller told Brooklyn Paper). Residents of Northside Piers or The Edge, with their proximity to the L train, would be less affected. It’s hard to know how close to closing the ferry service is and how much these articles are just PR ammo in Tom Fox’s negotiation with the city, but one thing’s for sure: It would be a real blow to Brooklyn’s burgeoning waterfront if the city let the operation die. Remember: It’s the one form of mass transit that currently is unsubsidized by taxpayers.
This Whole Situation is Ferry Confusing [Brooklyn Paper]
East River Ferry Service in Jeopardy—Again [Brownstoner]
Photo by pattytimtom
Now lets see if people continue paying thousands of dollars a month in condo espenses!
Hello whining luxury condo people…the city has bailed on all of its promises from the rezoning. New open space…not one inch yet. Affordable housing? Nowhere near the promised number created. If the rest of us in Williamsburg get your ugly towers blocking the view, you too should get the short end of the stick when it comes to promises made. C’est la vie in our fair bloomblighted burg…
“PS – Cortland Street was open for a year or two after 9/11 – the current renovation *only* closed it for five years.”
Exactly! I could get off the PATH and get right on my train home to Brooklyn. It was infuriating look at the “closed” station through the train window.
“PS – Cortland Street was open for a year or two after 9/11 – the current renovation *only* closed it for five years.”
And even with 5 years to work on it, they seemed to run out of the right color floor tiles because a few of them are the wrong shade of gray…
Sigh.
At least the new tower is getting higher. Looks like it is up to 4 or 5 stories now.
Residents of Northside Piers and the Edge will be less affected because there is NO water taxi service to the Northside. Hard to miss what you never had.
It is the developers who have made the promises about the water taxi, and as BHO says, the developers (or condo boards) should be subsidizing this amenity. The city has promised to expand service, and should subsidize the existing service, but the city didn’t sell anyone a condo based on a promise of water taxi service at their doorstep.
The water taxi is NOT mass transit, it is a private operation. That said, the water taxi (particularly with a stop in the Northside) could provide some relief to overcrowding on the L line (some, but given the state of congestion and the condos/apartments yet to come online, every little bit help). And while the city is under no obligation to subsidize private transportation, it does so quite regularly – express bus service, for example.
In my experience (I ride the water taxi fairly often but not regularly or every day), the service is great and almost always on time (as on time as the L train). Sure, there are breakdowns which cause long waits for a new boat to show up, but that happens underground too. On the whole, I’d rather wait half an hour on a bench looking out over the water than on a crowded platform at Bedford Avenue…
PS – Cortland Street was open for a year or two after 9/11 – the current renovation *only* closed it for five years.
“It took 8 years to reopen one half of the R stop at Cortland Street.”
It sure did. What was the deal there? A good example of how quickly things happen (or don’t) in this city.
“The city can barely afford to keep actual mass transit running smoothly”
Do you really think the problem here is lack of money?
It took 8 years to reopen one half of the R stop at Cortland Street.
There is a problem other than money when things like that happen…
care for a side bet, bho?
You lose the taxi ferry you lose real estate value. Did anyone say we were going back to a 70’s real estate market in which you could not get good people to rent for free in schabby neighborhoods?