In early December 2025, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) released a bold Ferry Optimization Plan, upgrading existing lines, combining others, and launching a new waterway route that reconnects Staten Island to Brooklyn between St. George and Bay Ridge. The latter has been a point of advocacy for Waterfront Alliance and many local partners for several years, with broader calls for five-borough ferry access from the organization dating back at least a decade
Waterfront Alliance’s own director of resilience, Tyler Taba, was on record in 2024 advocating for the St. George/Bay Ridge extension alongside Tamer Mahmoud, transportation chair of the New Brighton Civic Committee. Together on a ride along with the Staten Island Advance, Tamer asked “why do we have to fight so hard for something that makes so much sense?” while Tyler observed that the connection would be “one of the easiest and quickest solutions the city could pursue to grow service.”
And while one could make a case as to the ease of this common-sense upgrade, it did not come together in a day. A grassroots coalition consisting of Waterfront Alliance, Tamer at the New Brighton Civic Committee, Justin Wood at the St. George Civic Association, who started a successful petition for a BK extension almost immediately after the St. George ferry was launched in 2021, Transportation Alternatives Staten Island organizer Rose Uscianowski, the Bay Ridge Environmental Group, and New York City Councilmembers Kamillah Hanks and Justin Brannon worked tirelessly for years to see this ferry foray to fruition.
The Staten Island to Brooklyn route utilizes existing waterfront infrastructure to connect two neighborhoods with close cultural ties but little-to-no connectivity, a strategy that could be replicated across the city.
Launch Party
The EDC Ferry Optimization Plan was approved on November 13, 2025 with service expansion starting on December 8, 2025. To commemorate the extension, elected officials, community leaders, and members of EDC held a ribbon cutting ceremony and basked in their victory on the inaugural trips from St. George to Bay Ridge.
“After more than three years of advocacy, it’s finally time to celebrate,” said Transportation Alternatives’s Uscianowski. “The expansion of fast ferry service is an enormous win for all of Staten Island. It offers direct, car-free travel between Staten Island and Brooklyn for the first time in 50 years, cuts travel time by up to an hour for thousands of commuters and enables more residents to ditch their cars during daily commutes.”
The extension unlocks access to the west side of Manhattan for south Brooklyn residents who’d previously faced multiple train and bus transfers or a tedious drive to brave that trek. And eliminating the need to traverse the Verrazzano should minimize headache time for those routinely travelling between Staten Island and Brooklyn. The last ferry connecting the two boroughs was decommissioned within days of the bridge’s opening in 1964.
Thirsty for More
Even while celebrating the latest ferry revamp, advocates and officials are quick to point out where and how additional service is still needed to more equitably serve the city’s diverse communities, particularly those in transit deserts.
In an Instagram post championing the extension in her district, the new Bay Ridge Councilmember, Kayla Santosuosso, made sure to note that “we have not forgotten about Coney Island! A research buoy is currently in the water off of Steeplechase Pier to determine feasibility of a ferry stop.”
The EDC has indeed been investigating wind and wave conditions in that area – and what that could mean for a potential Coney Island ferry. Past efforts to service this high-trafficked tourist destination were stymied due to the costly wave mitigation structures required to traverse the open water, but persistent demand has led the City to continue exploring its options.
Upper Manhattan, too, longs for a piece of the proverbial ferry pie. Recently, Councilmembers Carmen de la Rosa and Althea Stevens submitted a bill that requests a Harlem River route that would serve their respective districts and connect several neighborhoods that could sorely benefit from more affordable, accessible transit.
Last August, then-Manhattan Borough President (and now comptroller) Mark Levine penned an op-ed for amNY pleading for a “robust trans-Hudson service connecting Northern New Jersey to West Harlem.”
As with the disconnect between Brooklyn and Staten Island, ferry service ceased cross-Hudson upon the erection of the George Washington Bridge in the 1930s. Levine laments the increased car dependency that sprung therefrom, bringing with it congestion, pollution, and frustration. He suggests that the existing infrastructure in West Harlem at 125th Street could readily connect with the Edgewater ferry terminal in New Jersey.
In the Rockaways, where the Ferry Optimization Plan combined existing service with that to Soundview via a single, stream-lined route, Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers praised the latest ferry updates, while indicating that she hopes it’s only one of many steps toward optimization.
In 2024, Brooks-Powers sponsored Intro 864, which required the DOC to report on additional opportunities for ferry expansion in the Rockaways, particularly east of Beach 86th Street.
“I look forward to the day that our ferry expansion efforts reach the communities in desperate need for transportation equity and access,” Brooks-Powers said in a statement. “We must continue expanding ferry service to reach more transit deserts and ensure that every New Yorker – from Southeast Queens to Staten Island – can benefit from a connected and resilient ferry network.”
And even while on their advocacy tour for the SI/BK extension, Tamer and Tyler were quick to rattle off potential next steps for fast ferries, including to City Island, Canarsie, and even a connection to LaGuardia Airport.
“The St.George/Bay Ridge expansion should prove a model to scale out for ferry service,” said Tyler. “Build local support for the ferry, activate that grassroots support, leverage it to push the city and the EDC… make more of these happen.”
Ferry Crazy
The ferry is fast, affordable, and fun. NYC Ferry has been steadily shattering its own ridership records, servicing over 7.4 million travelers in 2024 and over one-million in August of 2025 alone, which is the highest single month ridership since its inception. Often more than the subway or the bus, people of all ages love a nice little boat ride that offers breathtaking views of the city and its waterways, especially in the summer.
Between 2017 and 2019, second grade classrooms across the boroughs engaged in a competition to name the ferries (something they’re not doing for, say, the J train), yielding results like ‘Cyclone Shark,’ ‘Ferry Godmother,’ and ‘Forget Me Knot.’ Waterfront Alliance’s own President & CEO Julie Raskin recently recalled a ferry ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan as the highlight of the summer for her three-year-old, who wanted little more than to sail between the boroughs in perpetuity.
It’s evident by now that, provided with ferry access, people will ride for their commutes, their leisure, or while visiting. The expanded strategic usage of waterfront infrastructure is essential to maintaining a best-in-class, equitable transit system that brings New Yorkers better in touch with a one-of-a-kind waterfront experience.
