The East River Ferry Wishes It Could Take Your Metrocards
The company that operates the East River Ferry, the convenient link between northern Brooklyn and eastern Manhattan, wants to accept Metrocards, and has started discussions with the city and the MTA to make it happen, the Brooklyn Paper reports. First, everybody would just have to solve a few problems, including how to reconcile the different pricing structures, as well as the different infrastructures. (A ride on a subway or bus costs $2.25, and a monthly unlimited card is $104, while a ride on the ferry is $4, or $140 a month, with a $1 surcharge for bicycles.) Would there be transfers? Would ferry riders swipe their cards to get on the ferry? Where would the machines be? And so on.
Cities like Boston and San Francisco have figured out ways to link their ground transit to their water transit. If all parties involved were able to make this work in New York, it would make riding the ferry a more attractive option; already the ferry has been more popular than expected, carrying 715,000 riders to date since its debut less than a year ago.
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