City Creates Free Ferry Shuttle Downtown

By Ronald Drenger

The city is set to launch a free ferry shuttle service to move people around Lower Manhattan, which may begin operating by the end of this month.

The service, to be operated by NY Waterway and funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will run between the ferry terminal next to the World Financial Center on the west side and Pier 11 on the east side, possibly stopping at Pier A in between. It may be announced as early as Thursday, according to sources familiar with the project.

The city wanted to run the shuttle out of Battery Park City’s North Cove, just south of the World Financial Center terminal, but the Battery Park City Authority declined to give permission for the cove’s use.

At a March 6 community board meeting about Lower Manhattan ferry service (see story), Donald Liloia, a NY Waterway vice president, briefly mentioned that the company had been "in discussions" with the city about a shuttle service to and from North Cove.

In response to a reporter’s question just before the meeting ended, he said the shuttle service under discussion would run every 15 minutes during peak hours, and every 30 minutes off-peak, and would use new, low-emission boats that are 65 feet long and carry up to 99 passengers—smaller than NY Waterway’s usual ferry boats, most of which are 87 feet long and carry, many more people. He added that there was no timetable in place for beginning such an operation.

The following day, George Cancro, director of the office of ferry transportation at the Port Authority, said in a brief phone interview that the P.A. was working with city agencies and NY Waterway to create the ferry "circulator" for Lower Manhattan, which he hoped would begin on March 25.

The shuttle is designed "to allow people to move between the east side and west side, without having to go through all the construction," Cancro said. "It’s a problem to go across Lower Manhattan. We’re trying to help people."

He said it remained unclear if the BPC-Pier 11 service would stop at Pier A, where a ferry landing was created last November as an emergency measure, after the terrorist attack destroyed the PATH terminal at the World Trade Center.

Ferry service has jumped dramatically in recent months as commuters have looked for alternate ways of getting to and from Lower Manhattan, and ridership is anticipated to rise further as more workers return to the World Financial Center.

Cancro said details of the shuttle service were still being worked out, but that it would probably entail four ferries an hour between 6 and 10 a.m. and during the evening rush hour, and maybe two an hour the rest of the day.

A spokeswoman at the Mayor’s office on March 8 declined to comment on any details of the plan, but said that the Mayor expected to make an announcement this week.

To go in and out of North Cove, the project needed the approval of the Battery Park City Authority, which leases the cove to a company called Watermark Associates. When shuttle planners contacted Tim Carey, the Authority’s president, today, he nixed the idea.

"I explained to a number of individuals that it was impossible right now to have ferries go in and out of North Cove marina," Carey said. "Apparently, whoever was doing work for the Port Authority and the city was not aware of some of the constraints."

"We have a lease with Watermark Associates," he continued. "In the lease ferries are not prohibited, but there are some other issues related to insurance and liability that need to be addressed." To accommodate a ferry operation in the cove, he said, the lease would have to be amended.

"We felt it was better and the service could happen right away if they used the existing terminal," Carey said, adding that the shuttle "is good for Battery Park City, good for our residents and good for businesses."

"I’m very relieved that it’s not coming into North Cove," said Community Board 1’s assistant district manager, Judy Duffy, when told of the latest plans. "For residents who live right there next to the cove, it would be a big problem. The thought that something would come into North Cove and the community board wouldn’t be consulted—that wouldn’t be a good thing."

She said the shuttle will be helpful, though there will be less need for it once a portion of West Street is re-opened next month. "Right now we’re still in crisis mode, in terms of transportation, so anything helps," she said.

Anthony Notaro, chair of Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee, who presided over the March 6 meeting, said the shuttle would help downtown workers and residents get around the trade center site, but that the city should have discussed the plan with the community board and notified the board that the operation was about to be implemented. "My memory of the discussion is not that there was anything imminent," he said.

At that March 6 meeting, a Department of Transportation official and a Port Authority representative spoke generally about ferry service to and from Lower Manhattan, but neither one discussed plans for the shuttle.

But Battery Park City residents and waterfront operators who attended strongly protested the possibility of turning North Cove into a ferry terminal for NY Waterway boats, saying they worried about the impact of pollution, noise, and wakes (see story, "Critics Attack Ferry Terminal Plan for North Cove"). The criticism focused on reports that the cove might be used to accommodate the growing ferry traffic from New Jersey.

Calls to Arthur Imperatore, Jr., president of NY Waterway, for comments on the shuttle, were returned on March 12 by the company’s spokesman, Pat Smith.

Smith said there were only "discussions about potential emergency usage of North Cove, driven largely by the governments of New York and New Jersey, the mayor, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey." He said New York Waterway was "waiting for the city and state to come up with some proposal" for a shuttle service.

"At this point, we do not have a specific, definite plan," he said. "It might come about as a result of things not being done by us."

When asked about the comments by the Port Authority and the Mayor’s office, Smith said he had to hang up, then called back a few minutes later to say that he didn’t want to pre-empt an announcement by the mayor or governor, which would come "possibly this week, possibly next week."

"I’m not confirming or denying anything in terms of where the shuttle is departing and where it’s going, or that such a shuttle is happening," he said. "When they pick a day and a place, we’ll be there."