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A ferry from Wall Street to LaGuardia?
When Gov. Kathy Hochul pulled the plug on the $2 billion AirTrain development to LaGuardia, she instead charged the Port Authority with finding other ways to improve transportation to the newly renovated airport.
The LGA Mass Transit Evaluation report outlines with five-plus proposed options — two bus routes, a light rail, a subway, and “emerging technologies” — but the best one for us (IMO) is the ferry, which would launch from Pier 11 and land at either Bowery Bay, at the Terminal A end, or Flushing Bay, at the Terminal C end. All of the proposals will be evaluated on ridership range, cost, constructability and environmental aspects.
I have such great memories of taking the Water Taxi to Shea — to think that we could be taking something similar to the airport is just too good to be true. It won’t be faster than a cab, but it will be cheaper and way more fun. The potential stops are the existing NYC Ferry docks at Pier 11, East 34th Street and East 90th Street. From 34th Street, it’s 7 miles to Bowery Bay and 10 miles to Flushing Bay. Riders would then take a shuttle bus to the terminal.
This all makes a lot of sense — maybe too much sense.
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About 35 years ago there was ferry service between there or a nearby pier and LGA, maybe run by Pan Am as an add on to the shuttle ticket. I took it several times and it was much more pleasant than taking a taxi, but lugging my suitcase to/from BPC in those pre-rolling bag days was a hassle.
A ferry would be a great idea! If well advertised and efficient, I can definitely see plenty of travelers using it to get to midtown and downtown Manhattan. I’d even go as far to say that maybe some business travelers might be enticed to skip traffic on the GCP or BQE and instead catch an NYC Ferry from Wall Street to the airport and vice versa. It’s cheap, offers great views of the city, and not to mention they can catch a drink at the bar :)
The waterways already exist and so do the ferries, all that’s needed is to construct landing docks at Terminals A and C. It’s a no-brainer for me. Not to mention that the East Elmhurst community which sits nearby the airport would probably use it as a great transportation option to get to and from Manhattan, as opposed to a slow-moving bus.