I was a passenger on the Staten Island Ferry for the six
summers I worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and then again
for a few semesters while I was attending New York Law School. In fact,
the five of us from “The Rock” were called the “boat people” at school, at
least until we began to squeeze into a little Honda Civic to commute to Worth
Street.
Truth is, though, back then I never gave much thought to how
critical the ferry was to our public transportation infrastructure – even as I was
using it five days a week.
Fast forward a number of years and I found myself on the
City Council representing the mid-Island, while Mike McMahon - now our District
Attorney – repped the North Shore. He grabbed the mantle and took the
lead on all things ferry-related, including the fight to expand service.
Mike was out of the Council for years when Richenda Kramer and Nicholas
Zvegintzov, two members of the St. George Civic Association's Ferry Riders
Committee, decided the baton would be passed to me and requested a
meeting to make the case, yet again, for expanded service.
Though it was late in my Council tenure and the ferry was
not really in my bailiwick, their arguments were so cogent and so passionate
that it stirred a visceral reaction in me. There was, I realized, a
quickly closing window of opportunity to effect some real change before I left
the Council. That “window of opportunity” took the form of an amazingly
productive relationship with Council Speaker Chris Quinn, and I knew my standing
with my Council colleagues would allow me to maintain a veto-proof majority of
support for my bill.
This is not rocket science, but when negotiating a piece of
legislation – or, for that matter, when negotiating anything – one doesn’t
start with what one will eventually be willing to settle, one starts by asking
for quite a bit more. For me, quite a bit more was 24/7 service. At
least, it was in the beginning; I was soon to change my mind.
I started thinking about how things were done in up-and-coming
cities and communities throughout the country. They weren’t forced to
roll up their sidewalks at 1:00 or 2:00 AM as we were; they recognized the
importance of round-the-clock access if they were to attract the young and hip
kind of folks that would inject new life in older – and staler – areas.
Why should Staten Island be any different? Granted, the ridership for the
overnight service was low, but that was easily explainable: who would go to
Manhattan knowing that if they missed their boat they’d be forced to cool their
heels in a cavernous terminal for another sixty minutes?
Eventually, after strenuously making the case both publicly
and behind closed doors, we enacted Local Law 88 of 2013, which mandated that
ferries would depart St. George and Whitehall every thirty minutes, and even
more frequently during times of peak demand. Mayor Bloomberg, a staunch
opponent, imposed a poison pill of sorts by insisting on a tiered expansion of
service. Not perfect, but it was the best we could do.
By 2015, the nail-biting commenced over whether or not the
new Mayor, Bill de Blasio, would fund the full implementation of the law I
introduced and nursed through passage. Perhaps because of our two-decade
old working relationship and his awareness how important this was to me, or
perhaps because it was simply the right thing to do, the Mayor fully funded the
expanded ferry service. It was the last piece of legislation I enacted as
a Council Member, and I give him abundant credit for this, particularly because
sources later told me there was opposition on the agency level within his
administration.
It was a great victory, but now a new game has begun - and
the truth is there is still more Staten Island Ferry work to be done.
We met a few weeks ago with the Staten Island Ferry Quality
of Life Task Force, a group dedicated to “addressing quality of life concerns
on the Staten Island Ferry.” Frequent ferry riders all, they presented me
with a thorough report on conditions they confront every day – from overflowing
garbage cans in the plazas to unsafe and unclean bathrooms on the boats to
addressing the homeless population around the terminals, and everything in
between. Subsequent to that meeting, I wrote to Mayor de Blasio and DOT
Commissioner Polly Trottenberg requesting a chance to meet and discuss these
issues, in the hopes of working collectively to improve the everyday experience
of ferry riders.
But our work cannot stop there.
The coming tourist wave dictates that things must
change even more. The opening of the Empire Outlets, the New York Wheel
and Lighthouse Point will signal a new era for the Staten Island Ferry, one in
which it will carry millions of tourists to our shores, even as the ferry
continues to grow into a world-class attraction in and of itself. Yet, we must
never lose sight of the fact that the ferry is the most consistent means of
mass transit our borough has, and we must ensure that Islanders travelling to
and from work do not have their daily commutes drastically impacted
by this North Shore waterfront revitalization.
The time to address these concerns is not next week, next
month or next year; the time is now. I have already written and asked to
begin these conversations, and to lay the groundwork to make these any and all
necessary changes and much-needed improvements. We’ll give more details
in the coming days, but for now – stay tuned.