July 24, 2017 By Christian Murray
Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to come to Long Island City this week to announce the launch of the new Astoria ferry route that is scheduled to begin service on August 29, officials have confirmed.
The Mayor will be at Hunters Point South to discuss the launch of the new route— which will incorporate the new dock at Gantry Plaza State Park.
The new route will connect Astoria (at the Hallets Cove dock) to Roosevelt Island, to Long Island City (Gantry Plaza), to East 34th Street, and will end at Wall Street. The existing East River route that incorporates Hunters Point South Park will be unchanged.
The Astoria route is expected to take about 38 minutes from start to end.
Astoria route
A spokesperson for the mayor was unable to immediately confirm his schedule.
Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer applauded the addition.
“With more and more people choosing to live and build a small business in Long Island City and Western Queens, it’s more important than ever to have a variety of safe and reliable transportation options that have the capacity to handle this growth,” said Van Bramer said. “The announcement of a new ferry route connecting Astoria, Long Island City, Roosevelt Island, and Manhattan and added capacity to existing boats that service Western Queens is welcome news that I hope will alleviate overcrowding to better serve my constituents.”
Long Island City ferry commuters have faced long lines getting on board at the Hunters Point South dock in recent times, according to a report by DNAinfo last week.
The ferry service transitioned to the new citywide NYC Ferry system in May and the price for the ferry dropped–from $4 fares on weekdays and $6 on weekends to $2.75 under the new system. Some argue this has led to an uptick in ridership.
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30 Comments
I think the ferry will be fabulous, especially for those of us who work in lower Manhattan. The trains are overcrowded, never on time, and now becoming more and more unsafe. I’m looking forward to the trip no matter the weather. Unfortunately , after 10 years in this overpopulated , overpriced part of Queens, ……I’m heading out I December. I will miss the wonderful people I met along the way. My landlord sold his house for a couple of million, 4 families have to find new digs………..I paid $1600 for 3 rooms ….I will not pay $3,000.God Bless have a good life.
Great cheap date…take the ferry, see some sights, eat a meal
Thx for informaciom
You are a party pooper.
Finally they are doing smth for Astoria, everything goes to new upscale LIC.I hope this will fix horrible weekend subway schedule and bridge traffic
I think it’s wonderful I moved to Astoria five years ago and parking and driving hasn’t been easy I think the ferry will speed up the morning commute it’ takes the bus 45 to get to the F train hopefully this will stop the delay in travel time ! I’m hype can’t wait to get on the ferry this is good stuff!
The placement is horrible and absolutely no regards to people living in the area now all kinds of weirdos now have access to the surrounding parks & buildings that are near by, parking will be worst than what it is, they had a dock that they could have used right on the street area but yet they didn’t use it this whole idea was bad from the jump
weirdos? So anyone who doesn’t live in the immediate vicinity of your home is a weirdo?
Wow, what? What exactly makes a person a “weirdo” to you? For me personally it might be someone that writes a 4 line comment without a single period, leaving it a rambling, incoherent mess, but that’s just me.
If they used the existing doc, they would indeed run into traffic issues with the other lines (there are a couple more coming our way in the next year or so!), in addition, this opens up accessibility to more than just the HPS community, but also those in the court Sq/North of 44th Dr area. Also, they don’t really need to take residential opinion into account, considering they are all renters over there with an avg lease length of 2-3 years (transient).
Did you vote when they were picking the location? (current or at anable basin) – if you did, sorry you lost, if you didn’t, start getting involved in your community!
How does this open up accessibility to Court Square/North of 44th Drive? From the Linc building in Court Square it is 1 mile (21 minute walk). How does that help them? Besides where is it going to take them that they can’t already go? They have easy subway access to Manhattan which would includes far less walking to the East side of Manhattan than the walk to the current ferry. Do they really want to visit Roosevelt Island or the undeveloped Astoria waterfront? Also, to answer your question my wife and I did vote. I don’t believe it was truly democratic voting process, it was more of just community input. Look how long it took for us to get a stop sign on 5th St. with community input. Just because people rent and are transient their rights and objections are not worth listening to?
It’s a closer walk than the current stop, it allows access to places that are harder to get to by subway, Roosevelt Island is actually a nice place to visit, the Astoria waterfront will likely see a boom given this ferry access (much like LIC, Wburg, etc), it allows for connection to other lines that go to places in BK, rockaway beach, etc…
Again, sorry your vote was not the popular one, anable basin certainly would have provided further accessibility (and a shorter walk for court sq), but I do believe that those who do not invest in their communities (owning, staying, etc) shouldn’t get as much of a say as those who are in LIC for the long haul/care about the community/don’t just see their neighborhood as a temporary bedroom.Blame it on the developers who don’t build enough condos and are driving the rental trends
This is going to be a huge noise issue for the folks who reside in buildings 4610 and 4540 facing the water. How did the people in charge decide that nearly 50 feet from an apartment building was the best possible location? It is probably the same people who decided it was best to put rocks as the base in the dog park next to Sweetleaf. I am all for progress however where is the sensibility in this city’s administration?
Ha ha! That rocky, dusty, poopy and peepy dog park would have better served the community as an outdoor deck for Sweetleaf.
what’s the concern with rocks in the dog park? Not a dog owner, so I don’t know why this is bad for them?
Ha, have you been on the ferry? Have you seen it operate? It’s super quiet. Some punk with a loud exhaust on his car is going to make way more noise than the ferry.
Oh no how will my poodle Fido deal with the noise pollution? I will put him in dog therapy.
I hope this ferry fails epically. no consideration to the residents in the area, they dump the dock on the most narrow spit adjacent to a residential building less than 100 yds away. Why couldn’t they simply use the existing LIC dock? smh
We’ve all known where the dock was going for months. Everyone had ample opportunity to voice their opinions.
Oh my heavens. They didn’t consider that this ferry dock was only 100 yards from your million dollar condo?!? I’m really sorry for your struggles.
I agree that it is an odd choice of a location but I am more annoyed by the snotty people who assume a rental unit is somehow equivalent to a million dollar condo. A lot of “old timers” talk about how the neighborhood was so friendly before but all I see is jealous petty anger and judgement from the crotchety old grumps.
If it was something you utilized im sure you WOULD have been happy it was so close to your building. . SOME PEOPLE HAVE TO BE NEGATIVE. ALWAYS I am pleased to have a new way to move around the boro’s.
I think it is a valid concern. Personally, I would rather see ferry service there than Blend on the Water.
Ha, what? It’s a ferry dock, not a football stadium. What’s the problem?
So excited for another ferry stop and more destinations from LIC. Now if only the NYC Ferry can figure out how to operate on schedule – It baffles me how they are always behind – there isn’t any traffic!?
Delays most likely come from boarding and disembarking passengers. If the ferries are near capacity, it takes time to get people on and off the boat.
We know it takes time too load and unload a ferry. The question is, do the ferry operators know that?
Weather
It’s behind schedule so often because of how many people want to utilize the service, before the fare reduction, the boats on the East River Ferry were almost always on time. I’ve been taking that route since it opened and only after they reduced the fare did the delays start.
I can agree with that, I too have been taking the ferry since inception, and have noticed an overall increase in delays since it was taken from ERF and became NYC ferry. The new app pales in comparison to the old one too.