Should the city subsidize NYC Ferry rides for non-commuters?

Plus: full alternate side parking rules are back [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( [VIEW IN BROWSER]( [DONATE]( [WNYC Politics Brief] Should the city be subsidizing NYC Ferry rides for non-commuters? Plus: Full alternate side parking rules are back. New York and New Jersey agreed on funding for the Gateway project. And rich Manhattanites are walking to work instead of taking the subway, causing the MTA to worry about revenue. Sponsor Message[Ad: NYC Means Business. Click here to find options to help you shop your city.]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- [an NYC Ferry] Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock New York City taxpayers have been subsidizing ferry rides at a much higher rate than previously reported, according to a new audit released Wednesday by City Comptroller Brad Lander. The 50-page report found that the city underreported nearly $224 million worth of expenses dating as far back as 2015, when former Mayor Bill de Blasio launched the ferry service. Among those were the actual cost of each ride: While passengers paid $2.75 per trip in 2021, those rides cost the city $12.88 per trip, according to Lander’s report. Previously, the city's Economic Development Corporation, which manages the service, said the true cost of each ride was only $8.59. The release of the audit — which began before Lander took office this year — adds another wrinkle to a service long described as a money pit. While all mass transit is subsidized, the ferry has been heralded by de Blasio and current Mayor Eric Adams as an important but costly city service, despite previous reports showing that ferry ridership skews whiter and wealthier than other forms of mass transit in the city. [EDC data from 2021]( showed that ferry ridership grew even more white and wealthy during the pandemic, with median passenger incomes hitting between $100,000 and $149,000 and only 32% of riders identifying as non-white or multiracial. Still, Lander said he'd rather subsidize daily commuters who use the ferry than tourists or weekend beach-goers, and believes the city should create a pricing structure for different types of riders. "There's a good reason for thinking differently about which one we'd want to subsidize and which one we wouldn't want to subsidize, and if you don't know the full cost, you don't know how much you’re subsidizing you can't make that policy decision reasonably," he said. The comptroller’s office found that the EDC’s accounting practices didn’t include depreciation in its total costs, and removed capital expenses after 2018 — the year the city spent $300 million on new boats and service improvements. The report also found that the city overspent on one ferry by nearly $3 million without asking for a refund on the difference. In response to the comptroller’s audit, the EDC said that it disagrees with the findings, arguing it follows generally accepted accounting standards. But the quasi-government agency said it will "provide new financial and operational reporting" online going forward. Lander’s audit also recommends that the city issue a request for proposal for a new operator of the ferry service, which is currently run by Hornblower. The city is in agreement with that suggestion, and said this summer it will launch a bidding process. — [Reporting by Stephen Nessen]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsor Message [Ad: NYC Means Business. Click here to find options to help you shop your city.] --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Three July pedestrian deaths in the Bronx spark calls for safer streets [a stencil of a bicyclist on a green bike lane] Getty Images Two cyclists and a pedestrian were killed on Bronx streets in the last week, sparking calls for greater action from city officials to protect residents of the borough as pedestrian fatalities spike citywide. "Urgent investment is needed in the Bronx to combat the crisis of traffic violence and save lives. We can’t afford to wait any longer," said Transportation Alternatives executive director Danny Harris. "These investments must be equitable and prioritized in historically under-resourced communities." So far this year, 30 New Yorkers were killed on Bronx streets, up from 13 fatalities in 2019, according to Transportation Alternatives. The killings escalated in recent days with the hit and run death of a woman in her thirties who was crossing West Farms Road on July 1st. On July 3rd, a Jeep driver in Soundview turned left and rammed into 21-year-old cyclist Christian Castelan before fleeing the scene. And on July 6th, the driver of an Infiniti sedan collided with e-bike delivery worker Jose Angel Victoriano at the intersection of Grand Concourse and East 149th Street. A funeral service was planned for Sunday for Victoriano and two other delivery workers killed on city streets in recent days. Transportation Alternatives pointed to data indicating just 6% of the city’s protected bike lanes are in the borough, compared to 75% located in Manhattan and Queens. Both of the Bronx cyclists who were killed were riding on streets without protected bike lanes. — [Reporting by Gwynne Hogan]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's What Else Is Happening The governors of New York and New Jersey have agreed to share costs for the Gateway tunnel project. Governors Kathy Hochul and Phil Murphy signed an agreement this week saying they'd split the portion of the project's cost that isn't being funded by the federal government. Construction on the Gateway project, which involves rebuilding the North Portal Bridge, rehabbing the existing Sandy-damaged Hudson River tunnel and building an additional tunnel to accommodate more trains, is scheduled to start later this year. ([Gothamist]( Full-scale alternate side parking rules resumed this week. After a two-year pandemic hiatus wherein drivers were required to move their cars only once a week for street cleaning, the two designated days typically required in many neighborhoods must once again be observed. Mayor Eric Adams has insisted that full street sweeping is crucial to keeping rats and filth at bay — something residents have agreed with. "If we were able to keep the neighborhood clean, I’d be in favor of the one day [alternate side parking], but unfortunately during the pandemic New York has become very filthy," said one East Flatbush driver. ( [Gothamist]( The Queensboro Bridge bike-and-pedestrian lane is dangerously skinny. The shared lane, which saw a 42% jump in traffic from May 2019 to May 2022, is only five-and-a-half feet wide — even though the Department of Transportation says bike lanes should be four feet wide for each side. And yet, plans to add more bike-and-pedestrian space on the bridge were delayed earlier this year, with a new deadline set for the end of 2023. ([Streetsblog]( Wealthy Manhattanites are returning to the office by foot or by bike, causing concerns for the MTA. While transit ridership has remained high in working class parts of Queens, the Bronx and southern Brooklyn, traffic at the Grand Central - 42nd Street and 47th-50th Streets - Rockefeller Center subway stations is only at about a third of pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, a boom in Citi Bike use around Central Park suggests that now-hybrid workers who live in the area are biking on the days they go to the office. If this trend continues, it could mean a fiscal crisis for the MTA once its federal aid money runs out. ([THE CITY]( Transit projects in the United States are prohibitively expensive and time-consuming compared to those in other countries. In the U.S., long environmental review processes, high labor costs and the ease with which opponents of any project can sue make it hard to build things quickly and for reasonable amounts of money. In Madrid, by contrast, environmental reviews aren't as tedious, the public input period is 30 days, and employers don't have to cover health care costs for workers because of Spain's public health system, so quality upgrades to their transit system are cheap and happen often. ([Jacobin]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- And Finally: Before alternate side parking, there was simply no overnight parking [a car parked on a street with a brand new No Parking sign in 1951] Arthur Fellig/Getty Images New Yorkers grumbling about having to move out of their free on-street parking spots twice a week should be grateful that those legal parking spots exist at all. Until 1950, overnight street parking was illegal in New York City. Streets were seen as places for transit and children at play, not parked vehicles. And according to newspaper reports from the time, cars that were parked on the street at night were often burglarized or used by muggers as places to hide before jumping out to rob people. On All Of It, [WNYC's Kate Hinds told the story]( of how free on-street parking came to be, and why some New Yorkers are now pushing to revise a system that nobody — drivers, pedestrians or the sanitation department — seems to enjoy. --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- [Ad: NYC Means Business. Click here to find options to help you shop your city.]( Sponsor Message Support WNYC + Gothamist Make a donation to support local, independent journalism. Your contributions are our largest source of funding and pays for essential election coverage and more. 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