The 2022 farebox numbers

I remembered the National Transit Database a bit earlier this year, so here are the top hitters for 2022, and we can see the ridership recovery already. The four companies earning a profit from 2021 (Bay State, Trans-Bridge, Hampton Jitney and Hyannis Harbor) are joined by New York Waterway and the Chattanooga incline. Broadway Bus dropped from breaking even to earning just 23 cents on the dollar, and Peter Pan buses and the Seldovia Village Tribe ferries claimed to be breaking even. The Golden Crescent also claimed to be breaking even, but I think they're either lying or clueless or both.

It's not too surprising that the ferries did well in 2022: you can usually isolate from other riders on the upper deck. The New York Waterway ferries run every twenty minutes year round, charge $9 a ride and have gotten a lot of takers every time I've ridden them. They also load and unload passengers a lot more efficiently than the East River ferries operated by Hornblower.

Most of the Lincoln Tunnel buses are back over 50% farebox revenue, including Coachusa-owned Community Transit, Olympia Trails and ShortLine, so we'll see if they continue to improve. Red and Tan is only at 27%, which is probably why they still haven't brought back weekend service, but honestly I don't think they'll earn back those customers without losing money on the weekends for a few months.

Again, this just points to the foolishness of the Federal government and transit advocates. If the Feds had bailed out private transit companies the way they bailed out the airlines in 2020 and 2021, we'd be seeing a lot more people on the bus in New Jersey and the Hudson Valley.

The NTD now offers the ability to sort and filter in place, so you can sort and filter the data right in place, and even share a URL with your sorted and filtered data!

What are your #SightsOfSI?

Tourists don't know where to go when they get off the Staten Island Ferry, so let's make some posters for them! Here's one I made:

And here's one Joby Jacob made:

You can make your own!

1. Find a picture of the sight on Flickr or Google Images, or create your own. It must be freely distributable - either your own picture or one marked as shareable with Creative Commons.
2. Find the shortest off-peak travel time to the sight, by bus or Staten Island Railway, from the Ferry terminal, using Google Maps or the bus/SIR schedule.
3. If the route is by bus, find the ramp where the bus leaves from the ferry terminal in the bottom right inset of the bus map (PDF).
4. Put the name of the sight, the travel time, the bus route or SIR, the ramp letter and the photo credit over the photo.
5. If you like, you can credit yourself and add the #SightsOfSI hashtag.

Add your photos to this Google+ album or tweet them with the #SightsOfSI hashtag, and I'll feature the best ones on this blog!

Visit Saint George!

Staten Island is home to beautiful parks, lovely architecture, tasty restaurants and fascinating museums. As Joby Jacob and I recently documented, on a warm sunny day thousands of tourists take the ferry to the island, getting a free harbor cruise. While there, they could grab a quick bite, explore the prewar architecture of the North Shore, or take a short bus ride to the museums of Snug Harbor. Instead, the vast majority catch the next boat back to Manhattan without ever setting foot outside the ferry terminal.



Some tourists play it safe, follow the herd, go where they're told or plan in advance. Those kinds of tourists will require more explicit marketing, which deserves its own post. Other tourists like to explore, and many of them do this already.

Part of the problem is that the design of the ferry terminal and the streets around it discourage exploration. The neighborhood by the ferry terminal, Saint George, is charming and walkable, and has been acknowledged by the New York City Economic Development Corporation as the most promising site for "the kind of vital downtown that has long eluded Staten Island." The terminal and the streets obscure the attractions of the area and make pedestrians feel unwelcome. Since tourists getting off the ferry are pedestrians, the design winds up making tourists feel unwelcome.

View from the roof deck

The problem begins with the elevation of the main passage of the ferry terminal. While the roof deck has a clear view of some interesting-looking buildings in Saint George, tourists are not guided up there. Instead they are confronted with a series of ramps leading up to bus platforms, a stairway down to the Staten Island Railway, and a stairway marked "Richmond Terrace." None of these provide a view of anything outside the terminal; the line of sight is blocked by stairs and canopies.

Some tourists find their way up the stairs to the walkway. It affords a decent view of Saint George, but it is mostly bare, exposed concrete with a minimal canopy protecting people from the elements. It is very wide right outside the terminal, but narrows to a twenty-foot sidewalk when crossing the SIR tracks before the intersection with Richmond Terrace. Half the width of this sidewalk is currently blocked by construction for the Staten Island Wheel and outlet mall project.

The intersection between the ferry terminal approach and Richmond Terrace is the third part of the problem. The walkway is now just a sidewalk for the Ferry Terminal Viaduct, four two-lane ramps carrying buses, cars, taxis and bikes over the Railway. The intersection is designed for the cars and buses, with slip lanes, recessed crosswalks and lots of extra asphalt. It is confusing and intimidating to pedestrians.

The fourth and final obstacle is the buildings that greet visitors leaving the ferry terminal: Staten Island Borough Hall, the Richmond County Courthouse and the Saint George branch of the New York Public Library. According to my AIA Guide they were all designed by Carrère and Hastings in the early twentieth century. I should rather say that they fail to greet visitors, because they all have turned their backs to the ferry.

The front entrance of the Richmond County Courthouse, permanently closed.

On one visit in 2014 I passed a troupe of thespians performing scenes from Shakespeare on the steps of Borough Hall, but this past Saturday Joby and I found the steps deserted, and the courthouse entrance permanently closed (without even any markings to indicate what it was). The handful of shops on the next block of Richmond Terrace were either closed or of no interest to tourists, or both.

A short walk around the corner showed us a different scene. Stuyvesant Place offered a variety of modest but inviting restaurants and shops. The courthouse has a fully functioning door on that side. So does Borough Hall - with parking for the Borough President and various high-level functionaries. The Library still presents a closed door to Stuyvesant Place, but you can walk around the block again and find a welcoming entrance, as well as the new Supreme Court building.

These buildings, shops and restaurants may not be things that every tourist would find interesting, but Joby and I saw a number of tourists who were tempted to stay on Staten Island for more than ten minutes. Many of them made it past the first two obstacles of lack of visibility and the exposed walkway (it was a warm Spring day), only to disappear at the intersection with Richmond Terrace.

I can easily imagine more tourists spending an hour or two in Saint George, New Brighton and Tompkinsville. We saw a number of storefronts that were either empty or closed on Saturday. It wouldn't take many more tourists to support a few more cafes and shops, which would in turn bring more tourists.

It would cost a lot to reconfigure the terminal so that arriving passengers can see the way to Saint George. It might not be worth spending that much right now, but we should talk about that when it comes time to redo the terminal for other reasons.

The walkway from the terminal to Richmond Terrace needs to be wider for its entire length, so that tourists never feel like second-class citizens, even if they are on foot on Staten Island. It needs to be better protected from sun, rain and wind, but also to be more interesting for tourists. A few signs advertising nearby attractions and businesses would help, but the city could also grant permits for vendors and buskers in the wider parts.

The intersection where the terminal viaduct meets Richmond Terrace needs to be reconfigured to be more welcoming to pedestrians. This is the kind of thing the DOT has done all over the other boroughs. They know how.

Finally, the institutions of Richmond Terrace - Borough Hall, the Courthouse, the Library and even the Post Office - need to turn around and welcome tourists. The Shakespeare performance I saw was a nice start, but the borough could do a lot more with that plaza. What about a Bryant Park-like cafe? Or the Supreme Court could rent the space inside its east facade to the Staten Island Museum, which is a block north on Stuyvesant Place.

Saint George is a pretty, walkable neighborhood just steps from the ferry. There is no good reason for eighty to ninety percent of people who arrive in the ferry to turn right around without leaving the terminal.

Saint George's Hidden Treasures

The AIA Guide says there are a bunch that we didn't get to. See this album in Google Photos.

Visit Staten Island!

Staten Island offers lovely architecture, beautiful parks and fascinating museums. Thousands of tourists set foot on the island on warm sunny days. But as Joby Jacob and I discovered yesterday, there's a problem...

Transit setback roundup: I can't even

These past few weeks have been discouraging for me as a transit advocate. From almost every^* level of government I've heard elected (and appointed) officials promoting "roads and bridges," or crappy, uninspiring, unproductive transit, or opposing reasonable transit improvements.

• President Obama going on and on about "roads and bridges," and "infrastructure," and "choice."
• Senators Schumer and Blumenthal bloviating about the safety of Metro-North, without mentioning the safety of driving.
• NEW! Representative Maloney also ignoring the possibility of holding drivers accountable, exploits the tragedy to push $100 million for Positive Train Control upgrades … reallocated from where, exactly?
• Governor Cuomo proposing a budget full of transit raids, park-and-rides, and a mostly useless AirTrain from Willets Point to La Guardia. Oh, and taking $1.3 billion in mortgage fraud settlements for the Tappan Zee Bridge.
• State Senator Gianaris bashing plans to increase subway service to his district based on decades-old conversations.
• Assemblymember Simanowitz and Councilemember Lancman coming out swinging against Main Street Select Bus plan.
• Mayor de Blasio with a transportation plan based on ferries without feeder buses.
• Members of Manhattan Community Board 8 opposing bus bulbs.

* I say almost because I haven't heard anything stupid from a local congressional representative recently. Added: I just heard from Maloney! To the contrary, Jerry Nadler's efforts to promote the Cross-Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel project seem to be making progress.

So much crap, so much of it things that transit advocates have discussed for so long, I feel exhausted thinking about writing more than a sentence about each one. Thanks to Streetsblog for going into the details in many of these so that I don't have to; you can donate here. Also thanks to Ben Kabak, Yonah Freemark and Alon Levy for taking the time to call bullshit on Cuomo's AirTrain proposal, and Ben again for calling bullshit on de Blasio's ferry proposal.

A superficial charm

The guest author for tonight's post is Robert Moses, Chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. I have access to the New York Times archives, and tonight I was poking around and came up with this gem: a letter from Moses to Mayor Vincent Impellitteri, delivered March 9, 1952. I looked for another copy online, but didn't find one. Since it's a letter from one public official to another, conducting official business, I believe that it is freely reproducible. I have removed the headlines, which definitely seem like the Times house style, and are the only things that could constitute the intellectual property of that newspaper.

The main reason I'm sharing this with you is contained in the very first paragraph: the proposal that Impellitteri made to Moses. In his reaction, Moses was wrong in several respects, including his ideas that the construction of off-street parking would constitute a "solution of the parking problem" and that tolling the four "free" East River bridges would "serve no immediate purpose, at least so far as the current rapid transit deficit is concerned." He also shows his characteristic double standard where it is expected that the government will subsidize roads and parking, but transit is expected to pay its own way.

On the other hand, I think he's right that the demands for transit expansion, fare stability and high wages in the context of heavy public investment in the competing road network were as hard to reconcile then as they are now. Turning everything over to an autocrat is not a way to build long-term consensus.

You'll find the letter below. Bonus: I also found an interesting television interview with Moses, "the nation's foremost city planner," from 1953.

Moses and Impellitteri inaugurate the Central Park Carousel in 1951.
Photo: New York City Parks Department.

Dear Mr. Mayor:

You have asked us to comment promptly on a suggestion that a substantial part of the city's financial problem might be solved by expanding the functions of this authority to include all rapid transit, all private and publicly owned bus lines, all automobile parking (including parking meters and parking garages as well as overnight parking), the Staten Island ferries and all existing East River and Harlem River bridges on the assumption that these will become toll structures. The present rapid transit debt would continue to be serviced by the city, along with future improvements and extensions.

We pointed out in a report to Mayor O'Dwyer, dated Oct. 7, 1949, in answer to a request from him for a frank analysis of the proposal of former Corporation Counsel Paul Windels to establish a Transit Authority, that we did not believe such an authority, which it was proposed would finance improvements and extensions of the rapid transit system as distinguished from the existing debt and operate on a completely self-supporting basis, could sell bonds and remain solvent unless it had a free hand to raise fares at will, without public debate and popular approval. Our final conclusion was that the authority device was not the answer to the city transit problem at that time.

The present suggestion differs from the Windels proposal in other respects beside the fact that it does not involve the assumption of any responsibility by the authority for any construction work or for the deficit for the coming year. The suggestion also differs materially from Mr. Windels' proposal in that back of it is the idea, in our judgment without validity, that a huge new solvent and successful quasi-public structure can be established by placing the credit of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority back of rapid transit and related operations, adding tolls from presently free bridges, throwing in revenues from parking, and finally establishing substantially higher rapid transit and bus fares.

Let us analyze this plan in somewhat greater detail, and give the facts for our objections to it. To begin with, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority represents a consolidation of toll crossings and their approaches and related facilities, only recently refinanced on exceptionally favorable terms, which, among other things, will enable us to complete essential approaches, connections and extensions, the cost of which otherwise would fall on the city, state and Federal governments as part of the metropolitan arterial program.

The proposed Columbus Coliseum is the only project we are undertaking which is not directly connected with the main arterial toll system. This authority has established a first-rate reputation because its program is definite, limited and financially sound. We propose to keep it that way.

Under our recent financing, all our future revenues are pledged to our bondholders up to and including the year 1969. We cannot divert any of these revenues. We are trustees. No purpose would be served by discussing in this memorandum the possible use of revenues of this authority after 1969. Certainly this credit cannot be used now for other purposes. Moreover, it should be pointed out that long before our present debt is paid off, there will be other crossings and approaches required, which it will not be possible to finance in any other way than through the issuance of additional bonds.

It is only necessary to refer to the fact that the state has a highway program of over $3,000,000,000, more than a billion of which is urgently required, which it has been unable to finance, and that the toll principle for arterial construction has now been established by the state in connection with its Thruway system. Similarly, Federal highway funds have shrunk as costs of construction have risen. In any event we must assume that no margin of credit derived from our present toll structure can be used to rescue less successful enterprises in other fields.

Similarly, we do not support the idea that the rapid transit deficit can be reduced by parking revenues. Parking revenues from meters, parking fields and public garages, overnight parking, etc., are required for the construction of off-street facilities, and there would be no conceivable surplus available to sweeten the rapid transit situation. If the parking revenues are used otherwise than for off-street facilities, there will be no solution of the parking problem, which is if anything more serious at the moment than the rapid transit deficit.

The addition of the Staten Island ferries as a function of this authority would simply add another headache. Even if the fares were doubled there would still be a substantial deficit in the operation of these ferries.

The transfer of existing East River and Harlem River bridges to this authority as toll structures has a superficial charm which upon closer study is very quickly dissipated. Even if we assume that the public would go along with such a proposal, which we greatly doubt, and if it were in the merest of free movement of traffic to do so, which is also highly debatable, the cost, delays and inconveniences of this conversion would be enormous. We have estimated this cost at between $80,000,000 and $100,000,000. It would take at least three years to bring about. A recent careful estimate of the costs of converting to tolls the most heavily traveled of these bridges, namely the Queensboro Bridge, was $10,000,000. It would be necessary to provide additional ramps and levels, toll booths, and other facilities, and extensive land is required for these purposes. Twenty-year bonds would be needed for this purpose. Certainly this dubious and unpopular device would serve no immediate purpose, at least so far as the current rapid transit deficit is concerned. During the period of conversion and reconstruction of the free bridges, there would be many other additional expenses including the entire replacement of one bridge, namely that carrying Broadway over the Harlem Ship Canal.

It must be apparent that the real purpose back of any such expansion of the functions of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority is to raise rapid transit fares. This is the only device which will produce really substantial additional income. The statements which have been made regarding savings in operation through superior management by this Authority are no doubt flattering to its members, but cannot stand impartial analysis. We must bear in mind that it is both a state and city policy to establish a general forty-hour week, to grant increases in pay to meet the increased cost of living, and also to provide new and better facilities especially at rush hours.

The expenditures required for the new Second Avenue railroad and the other extensions of the agreed city program in the several boroughs, which will cost at least $550,000,000 not including rolling stock, will not produce substantially higher net revenues, no matter what is the basic fare. In other words, there will not be proportionately more riders as the result of these improvements, although riders will travel much more comfortably and not under present inhumanly overcrowded conditions. To put it another way, this expansion will represent a redistribution of present riders rather than large additions to the total.

No doubt economies can be made in the operation of the rapid transit system through better, tougher and more businesslike administration, but these economies will be relatively small and will not materially change a picture involving a $70,000,000 deficit for the year 1952-53. We must add to this figure also an additional $10,000,000 loss if the private bus lines are put under public operation. There must also be under prudent management a depreciation fund to keep equipment up to date and make normal replacement in the system, totaling some $40,000,000. Finally we must add in the $3,000,000 from ferry operation, which brings the grand total of present deficiency up to $123,000,000. We figure that to make up this deficit would require a subway fare of 17½ cents and bus fare of 17½ cents with no combination rides. At the same time this authority would be faced with the same clamor for extension of rapid transit and bus lines (whether or not they were economically sound) as is the present Board of Transportation.

It must be quite obvious, aside from the many political implications, that the determination of any such large increase in fare is one of policy to be decided directly by the people of the City of New York, and not one which can be brought about by the device of expanding the functions and responsibilities of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, even assuming that its present members could be induced to be parties to any such arrangement.

As to more economical operation, there are no figures available, nor has there been an study made, which shows just what could be accomplished. The authority would have to deal with the same Civil Service rules and regulations and Civil Service employes as does the Board of Transportation. The authority would be faced with the same demands from the same unions as is the Board of Transportation, some of which we pointed out in our last report must, as a matter of simple justice, be granted.

It is therefore our conclusion that the suggested expansion of the functions of this authority is unsound and that other more practical, more direct and more immediate means must be found to solve the city's present financial problem.

Very truly yours,

Robert Moses, chairman,
George V. McLaughlin,
William J. Tracy.

Apples and oranges

People can get things done on the ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle. Photo: tbone_sandwich / Flickr

The most frustrating thing about the latest Census report is that it lumps together car commutes and transit commutes. Many people (for example, the Consumerist, the the Asbury Park Press, and the Los Angeles Times) recognize that an hour on transit is easier to deal with than an hour behind the wheel, but nobody seems to have bothered to separate them out. Until me.

Here are the ten cities with the longest commutes, lumping together all modes like the L.A. Times and Marketwatch did, following the example of the Census Bureau themselves (PDF). I've put in the overall Mean travel time, but I've also included a column for "Drive time" that includes only car, truck and van trips, and a column for "Transit time" that includes only transit trips. The extra time that transit users spend is labeled as the "transit time cost":

Metro Area	Mean travel time	Drive time	Transit time	Transit time cost
New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	33	29	50	21
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	32	32	47	15
Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, NY	30	30	81	51
San Juan-Caguas-Guaynabo, PR	30	31	52	21
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA	29	30	60	30
Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI	29	29	49	20
Baltimore-Towson, MD	29	29	55	26
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	29	30	52	22
Yuba City, CA	28	29	85	56
Bremerton-Silverdale, WA	28	26	67	41

You'll notice that with their large transit mode share, the average 50-minute transit time brings up the average New York City commute four minutes, and the 67-minute transit time from Bremerton-Silverdale brings their commute time up two minutes. But the small number of transit commuters in San Juan, Riverside and Atlanta actually bring the overall travel time down by a minute each. If we just look at drive time, we get a different picture:

Geography	Mean Travel Time	Drive time	Transit time	Transit penalty
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	32	32	47	15
San Juan-Caguas-Guaynabo, PR	30	31	52	21
Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, NY	30	30	81	51
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA	29	30	60	30
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	29	30	52	22
Yuba City, CA	28	29	85	56
Baltimore-Towson, MD	29	29	55	26
Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI	29	29	49	20
New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	33	29	50	21
Vallejo-Fairfield, CA	28	28	69	41

This puts DC first, and New York City ninth, in drive time. Baltimore, Atlanta and Yuba City are all ahead of Chicago. Bremerton-Silverdale has slipped to 27th place, and tenth place is now taken by Vallejo-Fairfield, California, formerly eleventh.

In the past, this "longest commute" story has been used to drum up sympathy for drivers stuck in traffic and glorify small towns. Well, not in New York. Here in New York, we're in the top ten for drive time, but we're not number one. We're behind DC, San Juan, Atlanta and Chicago, as well as the crazy exurban drivers in Poughkeepsie, Riverside and Yuba City.

I'll talk about transit times later.

Slaying the parking dragon

Streetsblog is reporting that the New York City Economic Development Corporation is trying to build a "vibrant downtown" next to the ferry terminal at Saint George on Staten Island, but undermining that goal by swamping it with parking.

Yet EDC wants the island’s transit center and would-be downtown to make room for a sea of parking, which will draw more traffic to the neighborhood streets, eat up space that could be used for housing or offices, and degrade the pedestrian environment. At this stage in the development process, it’s not clear exactly how many spaces the new development might contain. But all the spaces in the enormous surface parking lots would have to replaced one for one, ensuring at least a full floor of parking almost by definition. On top of that, EDC expects that additional parking be provided for all "the expected demand produced by the proposed development." With 14 acres up for development, that could be quite a lot of spaces indeed.

First I want to point out that this much parking will also drive up the cost to build the development. It will reduce the profitability of the development, and thus drive up the cost to the city.

This is not surprising for the EDC, which has a record of overbuilding parking, as documented by Streetsblog. One anonymous commenter attributed the parking appeasement to EDC President Seth Pinsky and City Planning Director Amanda Burden, and called on Bloomberg to override them. But to give them some credit, the EDC has facilitated the parking-neutral Fordham Plaza redesign and the parking-negative Queens Plaza project. Noah Kazis points out that it may be the Mayor himself who is trying to appease the parking dragon: "The potential to develop these sites while maintaining the availability of parking," he said, "combined with projects at the Homeport, Howland Hook, and at the Ferry Terminal – will be a catalyst for the further revitalization of the North Shore, as well as the entire island."

Whether this comes from the EDC or Bloomberg, if livable streets advocates could get the EDC to reduce the number of planned parking spaces, it is not clear that Staten Island politicians would be happy about that. Think about the Flushing Commons plan, where the developer wanted to build a relatively sensible number of parking spaces, but was met with fierce resistance from the area's business and political elite. The EDC and the City Council then put in money to build more parking.

Any effort to reduce the amount of parking at Saint George needs to either go through the local business and political establishments (Kenneth Mitchell in the Council, Matthew Titone in the Assembly and Diane Savino in the Senate), or else to be done with such force as to crush the opposition. Good luck on either of those.

Oh, and the less parking you have at Saint George, the higher ridership will be on the buses that go there, and the lower the subsidy they require.

The key to successful ferry service

Last Friday, Times City Critic Ariel Kaminer and Second Avenue Sagas blogger Ben Kabak both hopped ferries and filed reports on their experiences and ferry politics in general. Both end up heartily endorsing the prospect: Kaminer says "If a few hundred thousand more New Yorkers could commute to work with the sun on their faces and the wind in their hair, we might be so much less stressed that we wouldn’t even recognize ourselves." Ben says "If even enough people for a few boat rides a day find the taxis cheaper and more convenient than their current commutes, the ferries will have paid off."

I read Ben's blog regularly, and I consider him a comrade in arms, so it pains me to say that he's wrong here. We need to provide more access to underserved populations and get people out of their cars, and ferries can do that. But they will only have paid off if they're the cheapest way to accomplish those goals, and I'm not at all convinced that they are. We have a number of other ways, including buses and trains, that may be cheaper and more effective.

Both Kaminer's article and Ben's post attracted an uncommonly large amount of thoughtful and insightful comments, many of which pointed to problems with the proposal. One reason they're so insightful, and yet so critical, is that we've been through this so many times. I know I've seen at least three ferry services fail, and probably more, over the past fifteen years. And yet, politicians keep proposing new or restarted ferry lines, studies keep being published, and pilot projects keep being funded, only to die out when the initial funding dries up. They don't seem to ask why.

Kaminer's article contains this particularly bizarre section:

Right now, with the major exception of the Staten Island Ferry, all the city’s routes are privately operated, mostly by the NY Waterway (which gets a boost from Goldman Sachs, whose employees commute in from New Jersey) and the New York Water Taxi (which receives subsidies from the city).

It’s hard to imagine ferry service expanding very far unless it becomes a public initiative, an integrated system with coordinated schedules and MetroCard access.

Well, no. If New York Waterway is privately operated and makes a profit, why is it so hard to imagine other services making a profit? Why not examine the differences between the services and at least take a stab at what makes the difference between a profitable ferry route and an unprofitable one?

What is especially interesting is that the New York Waterway ferries are not just profitable. They have the highest operating surplus of any true transit provider: fares pay for 139% of operating expenses for NY Waterway, and 115% for BillyBey (I'll explain the difference in a minute). The only operations that make more are the inclined planes of Chattanooga and Pittsburgh, which are essentially tourist rides at this point.

These routes are so profitable that until 2005, NY Waterway paid the Port Authority $600,000 per year in rent on the land for its docks. That did eventually become too much of a burden, so Waterway sold some of its routes to a new company, BillyBey, which negotiated a new agreement where it would pay ten cents per passenger instead of that rent. (The BillyBey routes are still marketed under the New York Waterway brand.) But Waterway still makes an operating profit of almost ten million dollars a year (PDF, and BillyBey still makes over a million (PDF).

So what's going on here? Why does the same company make millions crossing the Hudson, but be unable to do the East River run without massive government subsidies? Well, I explained some of it back in 2007: sidewalks, buses, trains, hourly service, reasonable fares. But there's another reason: bridge tolls.

Is it any coincidence that the profitable ferry routes parallel the only profitable buses in the country? As I observed with the Lincoln Tunnel buses, the situation at the tunnel weeds out two classes of commuters: those who don't want to pay the toll, and those who don't want to sit in traffic. They take the bus, the train or the ferry. On the East River, those who don't want to pay the toll can take the Queensboro Bridge, and those who don't want to sit in traffic can take the Midtown Tunnel. None of those people wind up taking the bus or the subway, let alone the ferry.

There's one thing that will make the East River ferries profitable again: put tolls back on the four "free" bridges. If you're not willing to fight for that, stop wasting my money on ferry services that will fail after a few months.

Profit and profitability

In my last post, I revealed the Magic Formula for Transit Profitability:

1. Give transit its own right-of-way and good terminals
2. Make it hard to use cars
3. Make it expensive to use cars
4. Profit!

In response, Jarrett wrote,

No question that you could make transit profitable by that method. Are you sure you WANT transit to be profitable?

Isn't its loss-making nature part of what keeps it under government control, and thus accountable to the city? Sure, a profitable carrier is good to its customers, but it's not always a very good partner for government's efforts in infrastructure development and planning.

Alon pointed out that profitable transit companies in Hong Kong and Japan do promote transit-oriented development, because it suits them, and this has also been true of other private transit operators in the past.

I'm a lefty from way back, and I've got a major mistrust of the profit motive. But I honestly don't trust the government to do a better job promoting transit. In fact, here in New York we've got a mess of government forces, of varying degrees of corruption and accountability, who take turns sabotaging transit. Ten years ago it was Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki starving the MTA of funding and directing their appointees to saddle it with debt. Now we've got a pro-transit mayor and governor, and it's the state legislators who are keeping transit down. If nothing else, we need profitable transit operators so that they can bribe the state senate on their own initiative without running the risk of bringing down the city government.

But in actuality, the government can still have lots of control even if transit is profitable. Let me show you how.

I'll start with Dave Olsen's examples, since he holds them up as successes of fare-free policies. But the money comes from somewhere. First, on Whidbey Island, Washington, Olsen writes that fiscal conservatives have tried to defund the agency, along with the rest of the government:

In 1999, State Initiative 695 eliminated the motor vehicle excise tax as a source of revenue for transit systems, taking away 60 per cent of Island Transit's funding at the time. They've since more than doubled their 1999 operating budget by doubling the local sales tax collected (60 cents, up from 30 cents, for every $100 spent in Island County). The district could legally increase the sales tax by another 0.3 per cent, or 30 cent per $100 spent, if and when local voters are asked to approve it.

So the voters of Whidbey Island voted to increase taxes, bucking a wider anti-tax trend, in order to fund this fare-free transit system. Why did they do this? Probably because they see the bus as something they use, not something other people use. And why do they use it? Olsen gives us a hint:

One of the many things we could learn from Island Transit is how they've worked with the Washington State Ferry system to prioritize walk-on, cycling, and vanpool travelers. Buses meet every ferry (at a half hour frequency from 4:40 a.m. to 11 p.m.), drop their passengers within steps of the ferry, load ferry travelers and depart the terminal before any car traffic starts to unload. Vanpools load and offload the ferry first and are guaranteed never to wait even one sailing.

There are only three ways to get on and off of Whidbey Island, aside from private boats and airplanes: a bridge and two ferry routes. The two-lane Deception Pass Bridge connects to the north end of the island, in the opposite direction for commuters to the Seattle area. The peak ferry fare is $8.60 with a car, $3.95 without (PDF), and Olsen tells us how the ferries prioritize transit riders and cyclists. Apparently, the ferry is such a hassle for drivers that as many as 300 commuters keep a second car on the mainland and either walk or take the bus to the ferry.

In other words, Island Transit works by the Magic Formula as well: (1) the buses bypass the only significant congestion on the island, (2) there are often long waits for cars at the ferry dock, (3) the ferry costs significantly more if you take your car. But instead of taking the revenues in as fares, it takes them as sales taxes, and instead of riders voting with their feet, they do it with voting machines.

If Island Transit were a regular corporation charging fares, it probably would make a profit. Instead it's non-profit, but it is profitable in the sense that it's able to make a profit. The bottom line is the same: the service is stable and well-run, and feels like something that people want to ride, rather than being forced to by circumstance.

And to answer Jarrett's question, even if the buses weren't run by a municipal corporation, the State of Washington runs the ferries, and the bridge, and the roads. In other words, it holds the keys to profitability. That's enough to persuade a bus operator, I think.

Don't induce what you can't sustain

Years ago when your Cap'n was just a wee deckhand, he was hired to work on board a ship. This ship had just gotten a contract with a big express shipping company, and needed lots of hands on deck. The pay was good, and there were new guys coming on board left and right, to the point where Jill, the girl whose job it was to go find us had her own berth on the ship. You could tell she cared about us, and she was happy to be finding honest work for people. The fact that she got a handsome finder's fee didn't hurt either.

Now the captain of the ship was so concerned about filling the orders for Big Express that he didn't pay attention to how much he was paying us or Jill. But soon enough it sunk in that with the money Big Express was giving him, he couldn't afford to pay us and Jill and still pay off the mortgage on the ship. One day in June, the Ship's Mate pulled out a parchment with twenty names on it, and Jill came and broke the news to us one by one.

Now, your Cap'n is a resourceful guy and this was right at the start of the Internet shipping boom, and being able to say I had worked with Big Express I was swabbing the decks on another ship for the same pay before the week was out. But when Jill walked me to the gangplank, she was crying. Now I'm a gallant guy, but she wasn't crying for me, she was crying for all of us. She'd been so happy to be bringing us work, and now here she was taking that work away.

Another quick example is pigeon shit. If you keep your eyes open you'll see lots of people putitng out food for pigeons in this city. Listen to them talk a few minutes and you'll hear about how noble their cause is, sustaining life, enabling the handsome birds to survive the harsh winters. And then you go to climb the stairs to the el and slip on pigeon shit. Have you ever seen one of these egotistical fuckers cleaning up after their precious pigeons? Oh no, they're too old and fragile to do anything but scatter breadcrumbs on the sidewalk. Have they made any effort to hire a strapping young fellow to clean up those crumbs after they've been through the pigeons? No. No follow-up, no sustainability. They get the gratification of being the Great Provider, and you get to step in shit.

This is what concerns me about the latest transportation effort from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who will be running for mayor next year. Ferries! Everyone loves a boat ride. The plan has been well-received among some environmental groups, including the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. But there are some concerns, discussed in this Streetsblog post, that the ferry service could eat up money that would serve more people if it were spent on trains and buses, and then fail.

The Alliance's founder and Director of Programs and Policy is Carter Craft, a sharp guy with a deep understanding of transportation, so I'm not surprised that their recommended guidelines for ferry service implementation echo some of my concerns about half-assed ferry service. In the comments on that Streetblog thread, Carter makes the following point:

Let's not forget that waterfront neighborhoods are almost completely un-served by subways right now; the bridges go way high above and the tunnels dive way,way down below the river beds.

I agree that ferries are the best way to serve the waterfront neighborhoods, but we have to be careful about induced demand. Induced demand is not what ferry advocate Paul Kamen thinks it is, a belief that building transportation is hopeless. It's a factor that requires that transportation be scaleable and sustainable, and here's where we get back to Jill and the pigeon feeders.



Here's also where I get to use this image of the Land Use-Transportation Cycle created for me by Pantagraph Trolleypole. Now I think I actually left out an arrow, because the relative quality of transportation can influence land use. A prime example of this is Schaefer Landing, a 135-unit luxury condo development on the Williamsburg waterfront. The developer included a one-year Water Taxi pass with every unit, but of course those were useless when the Water Taxi stopped running. All the people who live in Schaefer Landing were left with the long schlep to the subway, or driving.

I think we've demonstrated that even for waterfront neighborhoods, ferry service can't compete with subsidized buses, trains and cars without subsidies of its own. As the Waterfront Alliance rightly points out, any sustainable plan for ferry service has to include indefinite subsidies for that service.

The point of the missing arrow on the Land Use-Transportation Cycle is that subsidizing ferry service doesn't just provide for the existing waterfront residents, it encourages the development of more housing, which means more residents, which means more subsidies down the road. This is part of a larger package of subsidies and regulatory changes that has encouraged waterfront housing development.

If Quinn and Carter and the other ferry proponents want to serve existing residents that's good. But do we really want to encourage more people to be dependent on the subsidized ferry service? Where do we get the most bang for our subsidy buck? If it's trains and not ferries, then we should be encouraging people to move to areas served by trains, and reverse the subsidies and regulatory changes that are guiding them to the waterfront. Otherwise we're hiring deckhands we can't pay, and feeding pigeons with no plans to clean up their shit.

Water Taxi: What if?

The New York Times City Room blog reports that New York Water Taxi is suspending its East River service for the rest of the winter. The Brooklyn Eagle reports that ridership is declining on the Sunset Park route as well. Gothamist has additional coverage.

Times blogger Jennifer 8. Lee (I just wanted to type her middle initial) links to a Times article from 2005 describing the ferry companies' long struggle to make profits. I don't have the figures handy, but I'd be surprised if the ferry service to Long Island City has been profitable since the Long Island Railroad started running into Penn Station.

If anyone wonders why the ferries are losing money, and what could be done about it, all they have to do is try to use them. Let's talk about the best commute right now, and I'll focus on the Long Island City route. Imagine a woman who lives in the CityLights building in LIC and works in the office building at 55 Wall Street. Even she faces a relatively unpleasant walk to the ferry. She's two blocks from the ferry entrance, but for most of those two blocks there are no sidewalks along the west side of Second Street, so she has to cross over to the east side. Once she gets through the gates of the ferry property, it's another two blocks where the walkways are inconsistent and dump her in the middle of a half-empty parking lot where she has to constantly look over her shoulder to make sure nobody's speeding in. At least her arrival at Wall Street is relatively uneventful.

The next easiest commute is probably a guy coming from Long Island or eastern Queens who takes the train to the LIC terminal, and walks across the street to the ferry entrance. Assuming that he doesn't have very far to go on the railroad and works on Wall Street or the World Financial Center (the ferry used to go there, but it doesn't any more), he's in pretty good shape.

That's about it for convenient commutes. Once you get people who don't take the LIRR or live in Queens West, they're coming in on the #7 train to Vernon-Jackson, which is two long blocks further than Citylights, meaning over ten short blocks from subway to ferry dock. The nearest bus stop is in the same place, and the nearest stops on the E, V and G trains are even further. That's fine for an occasional recreational trip, but it just doesn't work for a daily commute.

The ferries are also limited by what's on the Manhattan side. As I said, if you work in Wall Street or the WFC you're in great shape, but most other job sites are more difficult. At 34th Street, the only employers that could actually be described as convenient to the ferry dock are the Heliport and the Water Club. There's a bunch of employers nearby, including the NYU Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital, but they're not convenient. The biggest obstacle is the singularly unpleasant intersection of 34th Street with the FDR Drive, which also includes a lane or two of cars coming from Waterside Towers and the Water Club. Anyone who's ever been there will know exactly what I mean.

The Water Taxi dock in LIC has a large parking lot. What about commuters who drive there and park? The problem is that anyone who drives to the dock has already driven past at least one bridge or tunnel to Manhattan. Why not just keep going to work? The only reason would be if they could step off the ferry and be at work, and that's a relatively small group of people.

Up to now I haven't mentioned schedules, because they've varied a lot over time. In the past there have been more ferries, but now there are just four ferries in the morning and four in the evening. There are only four LIRR trains (inbound only) in the morning and two (outbound only) in the evening that are at all compatible with the ferry schedules. Some connections are very tight so that if either the train or the boat is late the commuter is stuck in Hunters Point, and some require up to half an hour's wait. As far as I know there is no communication between ferry operators and LIRR personnel.

There is a midday and weekend "hop on/hop off" ferry, but it only runs during the summer and has a completely different route from the commuter ferries.

The last problem is the fare structure. For commuters from LIC, it ranges from $7 to $11 per day, depending on whether they're going to 34th Street or Wall Street, and whether they buy a ten-trip book or a monthly pass instead of buying single tickets. This is on top of the cost of a Metrocard or LIRR ticket. Considering the amount of effort spent on fighting an $8 charge that would be paid by a tiny portion of commuters, it's not surprising that these fares aren't exactly bringing the crowds in.

So what if the city and the ferry operators actually had the will and the power to do something about this? What would it take to make ferry transportation out of LIC work?

The first thing is operating assistance. In the Times article from 2005, Brooklyn Councilmember David Yassky was quoted as saying, "Mass transit doesn't work if it's not subsidized." I think he's overstating it a bit: there are a handful of examples of profitable mass transit, the best one being the New Jersey vans, but even those are subsidized with public roads. The ferries get subsidies in the form of shipping infrastructure like the Coast Guard and the terminals that are often built for them by public agencies, but that's clearly not enough to compete with the road and parking subsidies that many driving commuters get, or even the subsidies for train and bus service. If we want ferry service to work, we need to commit to providing a certain baseline of funding.

In exchange for that funding, we can require a certain minimum level of service. Peak-direction rush hour service is not real transit, and should only be implemented if it's necessary to avoid a complete shutdown. People need the flexibility to go home in the middle of the day if necessary, or to get to work late. Every subsidized ferry line should offer at least hourly service between 8AM and 10PM, seven days a week. Yes, seven days a week. Of course there aren't going to be "recreational riders" from Hunters Point in January - but there may be some people using the ferry for family outings on the weekends, if it's convenient. The government should be willing to pay for this level of service to be offered at reasonable fares, if necessary.

Now I don't want to see my tax money going to run empty boats, so we need to do what's necessary to make it convenient to use the boats - on both ends. The New York Waterway example is very instructive here. Imperatore didn't expect thousands of people to want to go from the dock in Weehawken to the West Side Highway; he paid for a fleet of buses, and your ferry ticket includes the bus ride to the dock in New Jersey and another bus from Pier 79 to wherevery you need to go in Manhattan. And those buses do cover a large chunk of Manhattan. Why didn't the Water Taxi people make a deal with the Emperor to have some of his buses pick people up at the East 34th Street dock? Why didn't NY Waterway do that when they had the franchise? Why didn't Water Taxi run their own buses?

For the ferry to work, it needs to have that network of buses in Midtown Manhattan. It also needs a network of buses going to the Hunters Point dock from all the LIC subway lines and the major residential centers in the area (Greenpoint, Blissville, Sunnyside, Dutch Kills, Ravenswood and Queensbridge). These buses could be owned and operated by the ferry company, or shared with NY Waterway, or even the MTA - that's another way that government officials can show that they're serious about making ferries work. At a minimum there needs to be a subway circulator in LIC, a bus running across 34th Street in Manhattan, and a bus that serves the UN, the hospitals and other job sites on First and Second Avenues. The LIRR should offer at least hourly service in both directions between the LIC terminal and Jamaica, at least 8AM to 10PM, seven days a week.

Finally, and this is really a no-brainer for anyone that thinks for a minute, pedestrian access to the LIC docks needs to feel at least as safe, convenient and comfortable to walk to as Pier 11 in Manhattan. That means wide, comfortable, well-lit sidewalks (that aren't blocked by police cars) all the way from the Vernon-Jackson station to the dock on Hunters Point, and a safe, calm crossing of the FDR exit in Manhattan.

Sidewalks, buses, trains, hourly service, reasonable fares: we're talking about a lot of money here. But I'll leave you with this quote from, of all places, a Fark comment thread about Amtrak ridership. Firefly212 writes:

I find most of the critics of Amtrak are people who are of the mindset that if doing something half-assed for a long time doesn't work, then surely it simply can't be done.

What Firefly212 says about Amtrak is true of just about any government investment in mass transportation. Since 1910, the only person who hasn't been running the ferries half-assed is Arthur Imperatore. The Water Taxi people have clearly put some effort in, but the pedestrian environment, the lack of buses? Half-assed. The government support? Totally half-assed. Let's do this fully-assed or not at all.