What to Know
- Mayor Bill de Blasio defended the high price of ferry rides, calling the report “short-sighted.”
- The report, published Thursday, showed that even though the ferry provided only 4.1 million rides in 2018, it received $10.73 in subsidies.
- De Blasio addressed the report on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show, critiquing its analysis.
After a report published last week by the Citizen’s Budget Commission found that NYC Ferry gets a subsidy 10 times that of NYC Transit’s, Mayor Bill de Blasio defended the high price of ferry rides, calling the report “short-sighted.”
De Blasio addressed the report on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show, critiquing its analysis. “The fact is it’s impossible to do what we have to do in the city if we don’t expand mass transit options,” he said.
The report, published Thursday, showed that even though the ferry provided only 4.1 million rides in 2018, it received $10.73 in subsidies per trip. For comparison, the subway provided 2.7 billion trips in 2017 and only receives $1.05 per trip.
“At a time when traffic clogs city streets, buses crawl, and transit ridership is falling, the City must make tough choices about how best to improve mobility,” the report said.
“Reviewing the system’s costs and subsidies through its first full year of operations should prompt consideration of whether maintaining the same operating strategy, pricing model, and expansion plans will be the most efficient and most effective use of City transportation funding.”
