Aldebol asks about City Island tourism and connections

I wanted to make sure my colleagues get a chance to ask their second round, starting with Councilmember Aldeball.

Thank you, Councilmember Maloney.

So I just want to really want to put the City Island ferry kind of into context.

You know, a ferry to the City Island area could be sort of multi-purposes.

Similar to existing ferry services in other parts of the city, not only serving commuters and students, but increasing access for non-residents to beach,

to the beach, to the park, and other waterfront destinations in the East Bronx.

You know, we have the largest park in New York City, right there across the bridge from City Island.

And, you know, how will that potential be taken into account when you think about ridership?

It's not just the commuter ridership, but...

All of the potential ridership that would be coming on and off the island.

As part of the vision study, we would look not only at the land uses immediately around any potential landing site, but also for areas where there are willingness to drive further, we would of course look at the surrounding land uses like park uses as well.

And, you know, I do want to...

I do want to ask again about the potential tourism.

Are you taking into consideration or are you projecting the potential tourism that could come onto the island and to the East Bronx?

We are looking at ways to measure non-commuter rides.

It is sometimes challenging because there are somewhat difficult numbers to make predictions on, so how many people will want to come from a tourism perspective.

But we are looking throughout the city and the system to find good markers and comparisons that we could use to make those evaluations.

Are you looking at a connection to the Soundview Ferry and Ferry Point as potential ridership?

Yeah, as a starting point, we're looking at specific areas and whether or not they have some of the physical, like the site suitability.

Like, are there sites that you can actually physically put a ferry landing or some other kind of waterfront infrastructure?

Once we go through that, we will, in the future, look at, you know, where would that connect to?

Because, of course, you can't be a ferry in isolation.

It has to go somewhere.

And then we would evaluate, you know, does it make sense to talk about this as a connection to other nearby ferry landings, like Soundview or Ferry Point Park?

Or is it only, you know, the kind of thing where we'd want to find ways for direct service all the way into Manhattan, for example?

Those different routing arrangements would be looked at in the future.