New York Waterway Ferry

[noharmony]

New York Times reports:

December 19, 2001

On the Busy Ferries, It's Steady as He Goes

By LYNDA RICHARDSON

It is midmorning on a gray, cold day, and a full load of passengers is spilling out of the ferry at New York Waterway's Midtown terminal from Weehawken, N.J. Let's say that again. It's not even rush hour, and the ferry is packed.

Arthur E. Imperatore Jr., an athletic-looking guy in a forest green overcoat, is waiting at the West 38th Street terminal, mulling over the ferry schedule in his head. He enters the wheelhouse and tells the captain to hold a downtown boat for him and two visitors. You can do that sort of thing when you're the boss.

And Mr. Imperatore is Mr. Ferry Service. At 38, he's the president of New York Waterway, the largest privately owned commuter ferry operator in the country. Before Sept. 11, Mr. Imperatore was already sitting on top of a big transportation trend: ferries have become a crucial way to move people across the Hudson River and around New York City. Now, with subways off kilter and the PATH train out beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center, ferry business is booming.

Mr. Imperatore's boats carried 32,000 passengers a day before Sept. 11, and now there are nearly 60,000 a day. His company has chartered ferries from up and down the Northeast coast, including whale-watching boats from Massachusetts. The service is running 35 boats during rush hour.

"If Sept. 11 had not happened, we would have reached this level of ridership in five to six years, but we reached it almost overnight," says Mr. Imperatore, boarding a ferry for the five-minute ride to Weehawken, where the company is based. "It has raised the awareness of a lot of new people about the capability of ferries. They're not a toy. They're serious transportation and to a large extent they've helped hold Lower Manhattan together in the last three months."

Mr. Imperatore, a real estate lawyer, took the job of company president nearly six years ago from his father, a trucking and real estate magnate who was considered nuts by transportation professionals when he started the ferry company in 1986.

His multimillionaire father, a grocer's son, is famous for his street savvy and fiery temper. But the younger Imperatore is reserved, yet friendly. He attended St. Paul's, a boarding school in New Hampshire, then studied at Yale and Harvard, where as a doctoral candidate in American history he considered a teaching career.

As head of a company that is all about nautical transit, the funny thing is that Mr. Imperatore has never been drawn to boats. He loves to fly single-engine planes, something he gave up after he became the father of four children.

"But I do love the waterfront, and I love what I'm doing," he says. "It's unique, historic and making a lasting contribution to the future of the city and the region."

Mr. Imperatore is focusing much of his attention these days on building the 400-employee ferry business. One project that intrigues him is a new proposal to transform a 90-year-old New York Central Railroad float bridge at the foot of 69th Street into a landing for small, high-speed ferries. He sees a chance to create a new commuter ferry to Lower Manhattan.

"It's still at a very early stage, but we're in touch with the Riverside Park South people to let them know of our interest," he says, noting how the company has a similar service on the East River from East 90th Street to Wall Street.

Mr. Imperatore, whose last name is Italian for emperor and pronounced im-PER-a-tor by the family, is now standing in Weehawken's main terminal, Port Imperial. He is on his cellphone, telling an employee that a ferry route map on display is six weeks out of date and needs replacing. His company has added seven routes since the trade center attacks.

IN the landscaped waiting area near the commuter parking lot, he is kneeling to scoop up an old plastic water bottle and stuffing a discarded newspaper wrapper in his pocket. "This is a very detail-oriented business," he says. "Another part of my job description is picking up litter. We're a very hands-on operation."

Back on the water again, we're heading to Lower Manhattan, this time on a high-speed catamaran that seats 150 passengers. As Mr. Imperatore surveys the altered skyline, he says it still makes him do double-takes. The ferry passes Battery Park City, where he and his wife, Marian, an architect, had lived for eight years before moving to Englewood, N.J.

Recalling Sept. 11, Mr. Imperatore talks a lot faster and absent-mindedly wrings his hands. He saw the south tower collapse as he guided a vessel at top speed toward downtown to help out. That day, his ferry service evacuated about 160,000 people from Manhattan.

On this day, though, the waves are gentle, the air smells pleasantly marshy; all is serene on the bobbing boat. "There is something almost spiritual about being on the water," he says. "It gives you a moment of peace and reflection."

Like that historian he never became, he muses on the ferry's role in the building — and rebuilding — of New York City.

"When the history of New York City and the New York Harbor is written 25 to 30 years from now, I think people will look back on the ferry industry as one of the major factors in the development of the 21st-century city," he says. "The river is changing from being a barrier into both a highway and a commons around which whole new communities are being developed."


The view of the New York Waterway's ferry and Manhattan from the Alexander Hamilton Park in Weehawken, NJ.





The gantry of the float bridge of New York Central Railroad at 69th Street in front of the 160 Riverside Boulevard at Trump Place

[Edward]

The view of midtown Manhattan from New York Waterway ferry crossing Hudson River.

[Kris]

September 17, 2003

U.S. Will Give City $5 Million to Cut Air Pollution by Ferries

By RANDY KENNEDY

Over the last few years, thousands of smoke-spewing buses on New York City streets have been rebuilt and cleaned up, leading to the reduction of tons of dangerous diesel soot.

Yesterday, a coalition of city, state and federal officials announced that money would now be spent to try to clean up a different type of transportation: privately owned harbor ferries, which are much bigger and are starting to appear with much more frequency around the city.

The Federal Transit Administration said it would give $5 million to a program, which it describes as the first in the nation, that would look for ways to clean exhaust from 40 diesel-powered ferries, reducing dangerous emissions by 75 to 90 percent. State and federal officials said the goal was to reduce emissions of smog-causing nitrogen oxide by 150 to 300 tons a year and of tiny diesel particles by 30 to 90 tons a year.

Officials said the program, to which the city has directed an additional $1.8 million in federal pollution-reduction funds, was especially needed because of a huge increase in ferry ridership since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. Private ferry traffic has doubled, to 1,000 trips a day, in the last two years, the city has said.

Unlike city buses, ferries are not covered by government emissions standards, and none of the ferries in New York Harbor are equipped with pollution controls, according to Environmental Defense, a national nonprofit group. Diesel emissions have been found to contain cancer-causing compounds and are believed to worsen asthma conditions.

Jane M. Kenny, the Environmental Protection Agency's regional administrator for New York, said that while federal regulations would soon reduce emissions from new ferry engines, the city must figure out how to clean up the fleets of ferries already in service by using cleaner fuels and new filtering technology.

"We have to be concerned about the nitrogen oxide and fine particulates that these ferries emit into the air," Ms. Kenny said yesterday.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

October 22, 2004

Ferry Company Warns of Cuts or a Shutdown

By RONALD SMOTHERS and CHARLES V. BAGLI

After years of expansion that helped to radically change the way thousands of New Yorkers and New Jersey residents get to work every day, the largest company providing ferry service in the metropolitan region has told transportation officials that it is in financial trouble and may be unable to continue providing service to its 38,000 daily commuters.

The company, New York Waterway, has transportation officials scrambling to figure out how to fill the possible gap and maintain service along its routes up and down the Hudson River - from Haverstraw in Rockland County, N.Y., to Belford in Monmouth County, N.J., with most also stopping in Midtown and the financial district in Lower Manhattan.

Officials are concerned that a shutdown or even a reduction in service by New York Waterway could send commuters back onto highways, trains and buses, further clogging already congested commuter routes.

The problem is an alarming development in what had been hailed as a renaissance in water-borne travel, a throwback to a more placid and environmentally friendly past. Much of the revival was sparked by Arthur E. Imperatore Sr., a former trucking executive, who turned a romantic notion of reviving ferry service in New York Harbor into New York Waterway, a multimillion-dollar company. The company went on to dominate the regional market.

But, in response to questions, Mr. Imperatore's son, Arthur Imperatore Jr., president of New York Waterway, said in a statement yesterday that the company was in talks with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to "maintain continuity of ferry service to Lower Manhattan." The statement acknowledged a "cash flow issue."

"Because of substantial increases in the price of fuel, a diminished job market in Lower Manhattan and a greater-than-anticipated drop-off in ridership to Lower Manhattan occasioned by the resumption of PATH service, certain routes are not generating sufficient cash flow to sustain their continued operations," the statement said.

The problems have apparently persisted, despite a rise in the number of commuters in recent months and two fare increases in the last year. The average round-trip fare is $19.

Anthony R. Coscia, chairman of the Port Authority, confirmed that New York Waterway had approached the agency with "certain financial issues" that were affecting "their operating status."

Mr. Coscia said that members of the agency's staff have been meeting with New York Waterway officials to better assess their needs, and try to ensure that ferry service is maintained.

One Port Authority official said agency staff members believe that New York Waterway is not merely trying to squeeze financial aid or concessions out of the agency. The official said they believe the company is at the point where it wants the Port Authority or others to take over its service.

Among the options that agency officials are said to be considering is asking the two smaller ferry operators - New York Water Taxi and Seastreak - whether they would be able to expand their service and take over some of the New York Waterway routes.

Officials are also considering whether they are able to subsidize operating costs for ferry service; ferries are the only mass transit means in the region that do not receive some form of direct government subsidy of operating costs.

To this point, the Port Authority and local governments have only invested in equipment and in ferry docks, with an estimated $100 million in mostly federal money spent in recent years on both sides of the Hudson.

"The ferry operations are critical and that makes New York Waterway's ability to operate important," Mr. Coscia said. "They have 16 routes, and some are more viable than others. But at this point we are still studying the situation."

Some Port Authority officials said they did not know if even subsidies would be enough to keep the New York Waterway ferries in operation.

For the last year the industry has seen reports of trouble for the company. But word of specific talks between the New York Waterway and the Port Authority marks a significant development.

Founded in 1986, the company was so shaky at first that some dubbed it "Arthur's Folly,'' seeing it as no more than the dream of a man, now 77, willing to speculate on his hopes for a revival of waterbound commuting.

After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 - with the PATH train to Lower Manhattan out of service and many commuters seeking alternatives to the Hudson River tunnels and trains - ridership soared, enabling the company to reap millions in profits.

New York Waterway, which used its ferries on Sept. 11 to evacuate people from the burning ruins of the twin towers area, was also the recipient of millions in federal assistance to provide additional service that could replicate the PATH rail schedules.

At one point, New York Waterway had 92 percent of a market that carried as many as 64,000 commuters a day between New Jersey terminals in Weehawken, Hoboken and Jersey City to Manhattan landings at Midtown, Battery Park City and Pier 11 near the tip of the island.

The company acquired a "favorite son" status in the industry, according to competitors, and its officials seemed more than willing to throw their considerable political and economic weight around to get new routes and block attempts by others to compete.

New York Waterway continued to expand its number of routes, even as smaller competitors began to draw off a larger share of the market, raising questions of whether the company had overextended its service.

Further, after PATH service was restored to Lower Manhattan last December, ridership dropped. According to the latest Mayor's Management Report, overall ridership, which reached a record high of 64,063 a day in 2003 on the three private lines, dropped by 22 percent this year, though it has begun to climb again in recent months.

According to others in the industry, Mr. Imperatore has also been hurt by an investigation by the United States attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan and the inspector general of the Port Authority into the company's use of about $27 million in federal funds and possible antitrust violations.

One New York Waterway official said that the cost of defending the company has taken a toll on its bottom line.

In addition, this year the company agreed to pay New York City about $800,000 to settle a dispute over landing fees for its ferries at city-owned docks.

New York Waterway has also recently become the object of commuter complaints about poor service and shoddy equipment. Commuters banded together last year to form Ferry Friends.

The group has complained bitterly about the recent fare increases and urged riders to boycott the company's concessions at the ferry terminals.

"They have had two years to razzle-dazzle us and they haven't," said Deborah Jack, one of the organizers of the group, referring to New York Waterway's virtual dominance over ferry service. "The service has deteriorated, on-time performance is down and there is an arrogance and blatant disregard of customers. People are sick and tired of monopoly."

While the extent of the privately held company's financial problems could not be determined, some Port Authority officials said that the losses were staggering and that the company "wanted out" of the ferry business.

But the Port Authority officials said they were not willing to let the service lapse.

"We have a big stake in this," one agency commissioner said.

Some officials said the stake was so big, it could eventually mean that the Port Authority will take over ferry operations completely and run them through the agency, much the way the agency did four decades ago when it took over PATH service across the Hudson River to Manhattan.

One of the crucial questions raised by the company's financial difficulties is what it means for the future of about $250 million in publicly financed ferry terminal construction on both sides of the river. New York Waterway had, in a move that angered other ferry companies, been designated the operator of those terminals, which represented the most tangible evidence of the government's stake in the future of ferry travel.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Edward]

Would never have thought they are in a financial trouble, always busy - lots of travellers.

[TLOZ Link5]

Originally Posted by Edward

Would never have thought they are in a financial trouble, always busy - lots of travellers.

You would think the same of the MTA, though.

[Edward]

MTA gets $2, NY Waterway gets $20 - surely it must make a difference.

[BrooklynRider]

It's only a guess on my part, but, considering all the capital projects underway to raise the comfort and convenience of ferry travel in NY (i.e. West Side Ferry Terminal, BPC terminal, Whitehall Ferry Terminal), this just seems like the beginning of a campaign to win tax breaks and concessions from NYC. It is all playing from the perspective of it's impact on NY. What's about the commuter perspective? What about the terminals on the other side of the river that will be impacted? Or, do they know something NYC officials don't? NYC Waterways has proven one thing very clearly in its term of existence: it's management very liuttle business acumen.

[NewYorkYankee]

NY Times

Ferry Riders Weigh the Prospects of Higher Fares, or Even No Rides at All.

Published: October 23, 2004

HOBOKEN, Oct. 22 - Riding the choppy waters of the Hudson River on Friday, ferry riders urged transportation officials to figure out a way to preserve the region's largest private ferry company, New York Waterway, without reducing service or raising fares.

The riders, reacting to news that New York Waterway is having financial troubles and is in discussions with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey about how to maintain service, said they were surprised, sad and worried that their daily commuting routine would be disrupted if an arrangement cannot be worked out.

"I've been riding the ferry for 12 years, and it is the best way to commute," said Steve Bauman, 39, a marketing manager for an insurance company. "It is more expensive than the PATH and other methods, but it is faster and better. It would be a real blow if they took it away."

Mr. Bauman is one of an estimated 38,000 daily commuters who travel on the Hudson River, rather than over or under it. Some of New York Waterway riders said they had long heard from ferry personnel that the company was in financial trouble, but they had hoped that things had gotten better.

"I find it amazing that the company is having money problems," said Virginia Calabrese, a financial clerk from Bayonne, as she rode a ferry from Hoboken on Friday morning. "The boats are full, and they charge $8 for a round-trip ticket. It seems like a money maker, and it is a premium service people want to pay for."

Officials from New York Waterway and the Port Authority said they were continuing to meet, but they refused to disclose details about their discussions.

The company says it has "cash flow problems" and has asked the authority to help figure out how to maintain service on some routes. Port Authority officials are said to be considering a variety of options, including subsidies, shifting routes to the two other ferry companies and even taking over the service.

But an official at one of the smaller companies that also provides ferry service said that the industry would not be able to maintain the level of service that commuters are used to without government operating subsidies, which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the city would not provide. The city has long operated ferries between Staten Island and Manhattan.

"I don't know what they're looking for, but I can tell you the city doesn't have any bucks, thank you," Mr. Bloomberg said on his weekly radio program on WABC radio. But, he added, "all kinds of transportation in one way or another does seem to wind up subsidized by government."

New York Waterway's troubles have transportation and government officials reeling. The company had led a revival of ferry service in the region, then had expanded rapidly, establishing routes up and down the Hudson River and making ferry service an integral part of the transportation system that carries commuters between New York and New Jersey.

Environmentalists and planners have lauded the trend, which provided an alternative to congested roads, bridges, tunnels and railroads. It also restored a romantic notion of the city and brought a renewed life to its waterways.

The two smaller companies that provide ferry service to 6,000 customers daily, New York Water Taxi and SeaStreak, declined to comment on Friday about whether the Port Authority had asked them to take over routes that New York Waterway might have to abandon.

David Stafford, general manager of SeaStreak, issued a statement assuring riders there would be no disruption in service on his company's routes from Atlantic Highlands and South Amboy, N.J., to Lower Manhattan. But Tom Fox, president of New York Water Taxi, said that the industry deserved some governmental assistance. The firms now receive only assistance to buy equipment and build ferry docks.

"But a lot of us feel that that is not sufficient," Mr. Fox said. "The best approach is to have them subsidize us against the fare box on routes that they want until it becomes a money-making operation for us."

Deborah Jack, who operates a Web site dedicated to ferry travel to New York, has been a critic of New York Waterway for several years. She expressed hope for a government takeover of New York Waterway.

She said she wanted the Port Authority or New Jersey Transit to take over from Arthur E. Imperatore Jr., the president of New York Waterway, and use its resources to make the ferry more viable.

"Ferry service has become a necessary means of transportation, but has become more and more expensive so that only certain people can afford it," Ms. Jack said.

But she warned that if the Port Authority awarded a ferry contract to another private company, like SeaStreak or New York Water Taxi, commuters would soon find themselves in the same predicament of fare increases and limited schedules.

"There is a great opportunity to do something spectacular with the light rail and the PATH and the ferry to make the commute easier and to ease the congestion in the tunnels and roads," she said.

She said that with a government takeover, tickets could be used for either rail or ferry service. Some commuters said that if prices continued to rise, they might switch to the PATH train or other ways to get into Manhattan.

"Right now a monthly pass for the ferry is $123 and the PATH costs $80," said Tracey Starr of Ramsey as she exited a ferry at Pier 11 in Lower Manhattan. "I hope they do not close the ferry down, but if they do or raise fares again, then I might start taking the PATH."

[Kris]

November 2, 2004

Once Folly, Then Vital Post-9/11 Link, Ferry Seeks Help

By RONALD SMOTHERS


New York Waterway, the dominant private Hudson ferry system, expanded its fleet after 9/11, but ridership declined and federal aid was cut off.


The New York Waterway ferry landing in Battery Park City. The company and its competitors have benefited from $250 million in public financing for ferry terminals.

In the beginning, they laughed at Arthur E. Imperatore Sr., labeled his dream a folly and ridiculed his plan to restore ferry service to New York's waterways as little more than a romantic vision and a throwback to a bygone age.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001. Suddenly ferry travel became more than a lure to attract buyers to luxury developments or a way to keep a few cars off the road and a few people off crowded trains and buses. It became a necessity in a regional transportation system that was wounded and more vulnerable than many had thought.

Mr. Imperatore, the owner of a New Jersey trucking company who plunged into the ferry business in 1986, was no longer someone to ridicule. Instead, his venture was deemed worthy of support. And so the money poured in: grants and other assistance from local and federal government agencies, prompting and encouraging him to expand his New York Waterway from a company with 24 boats and 12 routes to one with 35 boats and 20 routes.

But New York Waterway is now reporting financial problems, and its executives have turned to regional transportation officials for a different kind of help. Agencies like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the New York City Department of Transportation are now on the spot to provide money or other help so that service is maintained for the nearly 32,000 people who ride the company's routes every day.

The company's problems are testing the resolve of various government agencies to preserve the role that ferries have carved out for themselves in the regional transportation network. What the agencies do depends not only on their view of the importance of ferry service, but also on their ability to allocate precious transportation dollars for a service that some say still serves only marginal needs at best.

The choice is a tough one for officials who want to support ventures that keep commuters off roads and bridges and out of the tunnels - but not at a cost to other mass transit systems.

New York Waterway's condition has been described by its officials as "a cash flow problem" that has little impact on the company's long-term financial health. Because it is a privately held family business, it is difficult to determine just how severe the financial shortfalls really are.

But interviews and public documents paint a picture of a company with serious problems - serious enough for its owners to ask the Port Authority to find a way to take over some of its routes.

Officials of New York Waterway, the Port Authority and the city Department of Transportation will not publicly discuss their continuing talks.

Some people familiar with New York Waterway say it has management and structural problems. They said it failed to address the high price of fuel and other ballooning costs at a time when the ridership slid substantially from its post-Sept. 11 highs. Critics inside and outside of government, who would speak only on the condition that their names not be published, said the company expanded too rapidly and failed to scale back quickly enough when demand for its service began to wane. The Port Authority is looking at the company's books and the Imperatores' related businesses, including buses, parking, fuel and insurance brokerage.

The company disputes that its troubles are self-inflicted. But officials concede that the arc of its fortunes over the last three years has not been pretty: they have gone from pretax profits of $5.8 million in 2001, when the daily number of passengers was climbing to about 65,000, to a pretax loss of $1.4 million in 2003, as passengers dipped to 32,000 a day.

The economy has not helped. Before Sept. 11, 2001, employment in Manhattan stood at about 2.4 million, with 362,210 of those jobs in businesses located in nine ZIP codes downtown. Mike Dolfman, the regional commissioner of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, said the recession and the attack on the World Trade Center drove the number of jobs down to 2.2 million in 2002. The number went up slightly in 2003, but by the first quarter of 2004 there was a decline of about 86,000 jobs in those nine ZIP codes, to 276,105. The decline there since 2002 has been about 50,000 jobs.

During this time, New York Waterway expanded, partly at the urging of city and Port Authority officials seeking to build confidence among employers that the area would rebound.

The company took advantage of a federal program to provide loan guarantees, lowering interest rates, for boats built in the United States, and ordered five boats from an Alaska shipyard. But as it was negotiating to buy five more, the federal program was suspended. Still, bullish on the future of ferry service and urged on by local officials, the company went ahead with the purchase, although interest rates were 2 percentage points higher on the $10 million order.

Meanwhile, said Pat Smith, a spokesman for the company, its officials were approached by the Port Authority in early 2002 to run round-the-clock ferry service from Hoboken to two Lower Manhattan docks on schedules duplicating the 6- to 10-minute headways of the PATH line, which had stopped serving Lower Manhattan after its station was destroyed in the Sept. 11 attack.

At the time, ridership was climbing, reaching 50,000 a day from 33,000 a day. By November 2003, just before the PATH line reopened, it had reached 65,000 a day. The company's revenues climbed from $36 million with pretax profits of $2 million in 2000 to $73.8 million with profits of $6 million in 2002.

Much of this was attributable to reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, routed to the company through the Port Authority, to make up for the cost of the service that was not met by the fares collected. When the PATH reopened, the reimbursement ended, Mr. Smith said.

"Now we pay the city to land boats at Pier 11 at the tip of Manhattan for the same service that the federal government once reimbursed us," Mr. Smith said.

Meanwhile, the company had more than doubled the routes it had before Sept. 11, and had 10 more boats on the water. At the same time, costs were higher, with diesel fuel prices nearly doubling from 88 cents a gallon in 2003 to $1.66 a gallon now.

The company also has had to pay $800,000 to the city for docking fees incurred during the evacuation of 160,000 people after the Sept. 11 attack and the many trips it later provided for workers and National Guard troops. It has also spent $2.5 million to defend itself in federal and state investigations into its handling of some $31 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency money it received for its post-Sept. 11 services. People familiar with New York Waterway's problems say it is clear that the company needs help. Among the solutions being discussed are operating subsidies or the transfer or shutdown of some of its routes.

But there is disagreement over whether a private company should receive government funds to stay in business - and whether the amount of service provided warrants saving.

Carter Craft, program director of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance and an advocate for ferry service, said he believes government has to find a way to lend a hand.

"We are a transit-needy area and a transit-dependent area because we are so densely populated," Mr. Craft said. "If the charge of public agencies is to provide public transit, then it makes no sense for them to not subsidize water transport in the way they subsidize roads, trains and buses."

Local governments have already spent tens of millions of dollars on the three private ferry companies - New York Waterway, Sea Streak and New York Water Taxi - to build terminals on both sides of the river. Three New York terminals and one New Jersey terminal are now under construction, with about $250 million worth of public financing. New York Waterway has the contract to operate one of them at the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan.

Given that investment, Mr. Craft said, not providing operating aid is like building and maintaining subway stations but not providing any trains.

But others question the importance of ferries altogether, saying they merely shave the margins off the hundreds of thousands who rely on mass transit in the region.

John Pucher, a transportation planner at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, said that riders of three private companies that run ferries on Hudson River routes account for 1 percent of the estimated 7 million mass transit riders a day. (The Staten Island Ferry, which runs between Staten Island and Manhattan, is run by the city and carries as many as 70,000 passengers a day, almost twice the number on the three private Hudson River lines. Passengers ride free.)

Further, the critics argue, because of their higher fares, which range from $6 to $19 a round trip, the private ferry companies serve a small market of well-off suburban commuters.

"It fills an important niche," Mr. Pucher said, "but it is not the way to move a large number of people. I just think that the priority if you have really limited public funds ought to go to rails and buses."

But some officials said one of the realizations after Sept. 11 was just how important it is to build redundancies into the region's transportation network. "To me it is a matter of national security to have viable ferry service available," said one Port Authority official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has not commented on whether he thinks the ferries should get financial assistance, saying only that there is no city money available. Daniel Doctoroff, the deputy mayor for economic development and the administration's expert on ferry service, did not return calls for comment. One plan being discussed has New York Waterway's two competitors taking over some of its routes. But Tom Fox, the general manager of New York Water Taxi, said the government is going to have to help.

"You don't take an infant industry and throw it in the bathtub by itself," Mr. Fox said.

City Councilman David Yassky of Manhattan, chairman of the Council's Transportation Committee and a vocal advocate for public support of ferry service, said that helping the companies serves the greater good by taking cars off the roads and pollution out of the air. He said that he was optimistic that public agencies would "do the right thing." Whether it will be in time to help New York Waterway, he said, he could not be sure.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

November 13, 2004

Towns Explore Gaining Control of Troubled Ferry Company

By RONALD SMOTHERS

NEWARK, Nov. 12 - Residents of the small New Jersey towns along the Hudson River have come to rely on the ferry service that takes them to Manhattan and back and has drawn many of them to the expensive high-rises that line the coast.

But with the largest ferry company, New York Waterway, now in financial distress, the mayors of some of the river towns have asked a countywide authority to explore the possibility of buying the company.

New York Waterway, which has acknowledged a "cash flow issue," has told the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey that it may not be able to maintain service on all its routes. It has been in talks with the authority since last month, and some officials in competing ferry services and government officials on both sides of the Hudson have said privately that the company's problems are more serious and are related to expanding too rapidly after the terror attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

The mayors of Weehawken, Hoboken and Jersey City, among others, asked the Hudson County Improvement Authority this week to investigate the legal and financial issues involved in acquiring the private company. They also asked the authority's staff to begin the process of getting state approval to issue bonds to finance any purchase.

A spokesman for New York Waterway confirmed that the company is also in talks with the Hudson County Improvement Authority. The spokesman, Pat Smith, said the company "is confident that these discussions will result in continuation of commuter ferry service as a critical transportation link." The Port Authority is also involved in the talks, a spokesman said.

Mayor Richard F. Turner of Weehawken said the mayors had decided to act in the event that the talks between the company and the Port Authority did not resolve the problems.

The improvement authority, which was created by the state and can issue tax-exempt bonds for capital projects, would simply be a financing mechanism for an acquisition of New York Waterway, Mr. Turner said. Each municipality served by the ferries would operate its own route, he said.

Financial analysts have told the mayors that they should be able to cut the company's $45 million-a-year operating budget for the routes serving their communities to as little as $25 million, while keeping service at the same level. "We may end up having more flexibility than either a private company or the Port Authority," Mr. Turner said.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

November 19, 2004

Competing Ferry Service Offers to Buy 4 New York Waterway Routes on the Hudson

By RONALD SMOTHERS

A competitor of the financially struggling New York Waterway offered yesterday to buy four of the company's routes, serving some 12,000 commuters, and assume the debt on six of Waterway's new boats.

At the same time, talks are continuing between New York Waterway and a group of mayors from New Jersey towns along the Hudson River who are considering taking over some of the routes between their towns and Manhattan.

The offer, by New York Water Taxi, and talks seem to be the surest sign yet that New York Waterway, a pioneer and a model of how private business can address mass transit needs, is facing an end to its dominance of ferry service on the Hudson River. Instead, a mix of private companies, which believe they can make it profitable, and public entities, which believe their towns cannot afford to do without the service, are emerging to fill the threatened gap in service for about 30,000 daily commuters.

A month ago, New York Waterway approached the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for help in solving its financial problems and indicated that it would be willing to turn over some of its routes to the authority, other ferry companies or any other entities willing to provide service. The Port Authority has continued the discussions but not made any commitments to take over any of New York Waterway's business.

One authority official who has been involved in meetings on the issue and who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the agency had kept the discussions going, hoping that in time "private-sector options" would emerge to resolve the problem. He said that in addition to New York Water Taxi there were likely to be other private transportation concerns expressing interest in the weeks to come.

What is taking shape, said a number of industry figures and public officials, is a Hudson River ferry business that would be part publicly run, part privately run and part public-private partnership. No matter what, said New York City Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn, it is inevitable that continuation of operations will involve public money.

Tom Fox, general manager of New York Water Taxi, said company officials had been closely studying Waterway's operations for the last few weeks and eventually concluded that buying the four routes was "a business opportunity that we can make profitable."

Founded by the New York real estate developer Douglas Durst, the company runs several East River ferry routes and Lower Manhattan routes on the Hudson.

Pat Smith, a spokesman for New York Waterway, said that the company would have no comment on the purchase proposal. Of the four routes that Water Taxi proposed buying, two are in Jersey City; one goes to the World Financial Center and the other goes to Pier 11 and Battery Park. The two other routes are both out of Hoboken going to the same destinations.

Mr. Fox said that New York Water Taxi was not seeking the lucrative routes out of Weehawken that go to a West Side pier in Midtown and to Lower Manhattan, in part because it wanted to service routes that connect directly to existing mass transit systems, like the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and New Jersey Transit buses on the New Jersey side and Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway and bus lines in Manhattan.

"These are simpler to run and we don't want to bite off more than we can chew," Mr. Fox said.

Much of New York Waterway's early success was linked to its decision to provide free bus service to and from docking locations on both sides of the river when those locations were not served by existing mass transit. But the service proved as costly as it was necessary, worsening their financial troubles.

Mr. Fox's proposal comes nearly a week after the mayors of Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken proposed the purchase of New York Waterway and its routes as a way of ensuring continuation of services to some of the shoreline's most luxurious residential and office addresses. He insisted that the offer by public agencies had not led to the company's offer after its weeks of silence, but conceded that there was now competition and that that was good.

"We bring private capital to the situation to see if we can operate the routes in a way that minimizes public investment while maximizing public benefit," Mr. Fox said.

The proposal by the Hudson River mayors has run into local opposition. Under the mayor's plan, the Hudson County Improvement Authority, which is studying their plan, would issue bonds to buy New York Waterway routes and equipment. The towns served by the routes would then operate their own services.

But a group of Hoboken City Council members attacked the plan on Thursday as unworkable, saying that the already burdened residents of the city could not afford to take over what was likely to be a deficit-ridden operation. Councilwoman Carol Marsh said that the proper course was for the Port Authority to take over the service.

Councilman Anthony Soares questioned whether Hoboken or other Hudson County governments had the management expertise to be in the ferry business.

"The only thing that I have known the Hudson County Improvement Authority to float is bonds," Mr. Soares said. "I doubt if they could float a ferry business."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company


New York Water Taxi Ferries

[ZippyTheChimp]

One if by land...
http://img7.exs.cx/img7/4905/Rate2.jpg

http://www.fs-sunrise.de/image/nywatertaxi.JPG


I was on a ferry out of WFC yesterday, and there were 5 ferries passing each other within 100 yards. The problem can't be ridership. Debt must be substantial. The Water Taxi seems to be a more nimble operation. It will be interesting to see if they can handle more volume.

The Pier 79 Ferry Terminal will be complete soon. A major flaw is that the nearest subway is on 8th Ave.

[Kris]

November 24, 2004

Hudson County Takes First Step to Buy Ailing Ferry Service

By RONALD SMOTHERS

JERSEY CITY, NOV. 23 - A proposal by a group of Hudson County mayors to acquire the financially ailing New York Waterway won a first round of approval on Tuesday from the county's Board of Freeholders after a long debate.

The board narrowly agreed to have the Hudson County Improvement Authority begin a detailed analysis of the proposal and start the process of issuing $38 million in bonds to do so.

But the vote was immediately disputed, with opponents threatening to go to court over the way it was conducted. And under state law, the resolution would again have to be approved by the nine-member board in a public session in two weeks to be final.

Debate over the measure lasted nearly two hours, during which new details emerged about how and why New York Waterway, which has dominated the ferry industry, has fallen into financial trouble. Various proposals are now on the table to try to maintain the company's routes, with a rival ferry company, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Hudson County mayors all in talks over possible solutions.

On another front, representatives from Hudson County met late yesterday with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York. The ferry service delivers some 30,000 riders a day between New Jersey and Manhattan, serving Midtown and the Financial District.

Critics of the Hudson County plan argued that the proposed purchase of the company and its routes amounted to a bailout of a private company. They also questioned whether a county government could successfully operate an enterprise that experienced business people could not. The plan calls for the improvement authority to raise the money for the purchase and for individual cities to operate the routes that serve their communities.

The opponents, led by Freeholders William O'Dea and Radames Velasquez, both Democrats of Jersey City, also argued that ferry service would not suddenly stop if they did not act.

"The concern I have is the way we are being forced and rushed into things," Mr. O'Dea said. "It should be the Port Authority and New Jersey Transit doing this, and internally they have looked at this and see problems."

Supporters argued that 30,000 or so daily commuters relied on the ferry service, and that it is especially important to residents of some high-priced residential and commercial developments along their shores.

The vote, at first, had four members in favor, three opposed and two abstentions. It needed five votes in favor to pass.

After seeing that the proponents had failed to get a majority, one of the abstaining members, Barry Dugan, a Democrat of Bayonne, sought to change his vote.

After heated exchanges and objections from opponents over the way the measure was reconsidered, Mr. Dugan was allowed to change his vote to support the measure. The board subsequently voted down a motion to provide legal counsel to the opponents so they could challenge the voting procedure in court.

According to the proposal put together by the Hudson County Improvement Authority and presented to the freeholders, New York Waterway has debt of about $53 million, $40 million of which is secured by equipment and routes and $13 million of which is secured by personal guarantees from its owner, Arthur Imperatore. The operation, with 35 boats, 20 routes and 54 buses serving terminals, is losing about $500,000 a week, improvement authority officials said.

The authority, in its analysis, concluded that the company had over expanded after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which brought a great demand for ferry service. It also concluded that New York Waterway was over-leveraged and had failed to cut costs as revenues declined.

The authority alsoconcluded that New York Waterway had failed to anticipate the impact of the reopening of PATH service in 2003. Before that, the company's ferries were logging 65,000 passengers a day. Since then, according to the presentation to the freeholders, the company had been unsuccessful in negotiating cost concessions on things like docking fees.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

November 28, 2004

THE CITY

Ferries in a Sea of Red

During the current conflict over funding for the area's commuter trains, buses and subway service, we have pointed out that a good mass transit system requires - and deserves - public subsidy. Let's add ferry service to the equation.

Given the proximity of so much city and suburban land to the water, ferries should be playing a larger role, particularly when it comes to getting people to work. They can take some of the strain off overcrowded roads, subways and railroad lines. Reliable ferry service could also attract development to long-ignored waterfronts from Yonkers to Far Rockaway. New Jersey has seen the future, with residential developments serviced by ferries already bringing in millions in new tax revenue along the Hudson.

But right now, the 32,000 people who depend on ferry service between New Jersey and New York are probably feeling uneasy about their future commuting, since New York Waterway, the private company that runs the Hudson River crossings, is staggering under financial troubles. A county government authority in New Jersey and a competing service, New York Water Taxi, have each expressed interest in taking over the affected routes. Local officials and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey should make sure that one way or another, the system stays in operation.

The New York Waterway situation is reminiscent of what happened with the New York City subways, which began a century ago as private businesses until dreams of profits gave way to debt. The city and state stepped in to save the system because New York's future depended on it. The city has arrived at a similar juncture with the ferries. The service has proved itself, in terms of both reliability and need. But the ferries are forced to compete with heavily subsidized mass transit - like the PATH trains, for which 60 percent of the cost of each ride is paid by the government. They cannot attract a large body of customers while charging enough to maintain their service.

Besides the commuters' needs, there is also a security component to be considered. New York Waterway dispatched a rescue flotilla on Sept. 11, evacuating tens of thousands of people from Lower Manhattan. Ferries were again pressed into service during the blackout of August 2003. That alone should be reason to find help for ferry operators. The city could begin by forgoing docking fees, saving the companies about $1.5 million a year, something that City Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn is proposing.

Beyond that, ferry service is going to require support and coordination on a regional basis. We're disappointed that the Port Authority has not been more active in the New York Waterway issue. The authority was founded to provide better transportation between New York and New Jersey, but on this matter it is dropping the ball. New York City's commitment seems confined to the Staten Island Ferry. Like PATH, that service gets massive subsidies; for passengers who arrive on foot, the trip is free. There is no good reason not to charge something, and use the money as a down payment on a regional ferry system that can stay afloat.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company