Brooks-Powers asks how combined Soundview-Rockaway route works

In terms of Rockway Riders, EDC's own optimization plan found the Rockways have limited access to Midtown.

Following that plan, reconfigurations were made combining the Soundview and Rockway routes to provide additional one-seat connection to Manhattan.

How has the new combined route worked for Rockway rides?

Thank you for the question.

We see it as beneficial because people are able to have that one-seat ride, so now if you start in the Rockaways, you do not need to transfer, and the people who were switching vessels at Pier 11 and waiting and sometimes missing a vessel no longer have to do that.

It also allows people to make further trips that are going further north.

From the north for folks in the Bronx, it gives them a way to get into the Rockaways.

It is a long trip, but if you are on the Upper East Side or in the Bronx and you want to visit the Rockaways,

Rockaways, these provide new opportunities.

I don't have the ridership numbers in front of me, but I will say that what we have seen as part of our summer evaluation is that almost 9% of the trips that were taken on NYC Ferry over the summer,

or since between May and mid-September, were trips that you could not make in the past.

That is, whether it's Rockaway to Midtown, Rockaway to the Upper East Side, or that also includes places like Staten Island to Brooklyn, anywhere that we created new links, we saw 9% of our ridership, which means that that's a whole new group of riders

that are able to experience the system.

I'll tell you, if you expand it to Councilmember Stevens'district and my district, you'll see an increase there, too.

We've been trying to get to each other via ferry.