Ferry kept afloat in Yonkers as funds run dry
Kept afloat this summer by temporary state funding, Hudson River
ferry service at Yonkers needs to attract more riders over the next
three months to convince federal officials the two-year-old mass-transit
project merits continued subsidies.
Yonkers city officials and the city’s private ferry operator,
Brooklyn-based New York Water Taxi, hope that adding a midtown stop this
month to its Manhattan route and the guerilla marketing campaign they
plan to launch after Labor Day will attract more river commuters as the
ferry rides out its probation.
Launched in May 2007 with a two-year, $4.2 million grant awarded by the
Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the yellow-bodied, 149-passenger
catamarans have averaged about 75 riders daily during summer months and
about 90 passengers in fall, said David Simpson, spokesman for Yonkers
Mayor Philip Amicone. The ferry has operated on weekdays with two
morning runs from the Yonkers City Pier to the World Financial Center
and Wall Street, down from four runs daily in its inaugural year.
Tom Fox, president and CEO of Harbor Experience Cos., New York Water
Taxi’s parent company, last week said the Yonkers line had a 30 percent
year-over-year increase in riders, “so it’s turning in the right
direction.”
“I think it’s difficult to get people who are raised in an auto culture
to get out on the river,” he said.
Fox and Yonkers officials expect a ridership boost with the Aug. 3
addition of a ferry stop at West 39th Street for midtown commuters. “The
original service was limited in that it only services the financial
district,” Simpson said. He said he personally knows of more Yonkers
commuters who work at midtown companies than downtown.
Fox said the midtown addition “will be very beneficial.” Ferry
passengers can connect at the West 39th Street pier to free shuttle bus
service on 34th, 42nd and 50th streets.
With the ferry’s operating subsidy dwindling, New York Water Taxi on May
1 discontinued its connecting service from Haverstraw in Rockland County
to Yonkers. The Haverstraw run had only about 15 passengers daily,
Simpson said. “It allowed us to continue the Yonkers to lower Manhattan
by cutting that out.”
The state economic development agency, Empire State Development Corp.,
came to the ferry’s midsummer rescue with a $300,000 loan to Yonkers
that city officials said will allow the expanded service to continue for
at least three months. Fox said his company’s monthly operating costs
for the Yonkers service range from $88,000 to $92,000.
The state loan includes funding for a ramped-up marketing effort that
could include “some unconventional ways, guerilla marketing,” Simpson
said.
“Marketing, which wasn’t an emphasis the last time around, should be and
will be,” said Fox. The broad effort will include television and
Internet marketing, drive-time radio ads, direct mail and contacts with
human resource directors at Manhattan companies where Westchester
commuters work. Regular ferry commuters “are our best advertising,” he
noted.
“The hope is that we continue this into the fall, we do a concerted
advertising campaign, we add a new stop and we see how we can grow the
business,” Fox said.
“I think there’s a need for a public subsidy for something like this,”
just as Metro-North Railroad, heavy rail, airports, bridges and tunnels
are subsidized, said Fox. “I think one of the problems has been that
mass-transit planners don’t necessarily see ferries as part of a
network.”
“We’re not looking to double the ridership in the first three months,”
said Simpson at City Hall, “but we need to show a significant increase
to the point that it makes continued federal funding an option.
Hopefully, this is a bump in the road – or a wave, if you will. The new
midtown stop hopefully will make it more viable.”
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