Maloney asks EDC and DOT to clarify waterfront authority

So we'll start diving into questions.

We covered a lot of different types of transit.

New York City's waterways supports a growing mix of ferries, excursions, commercial, aviation activity, but responsibility for all that activity is divided among EDC, DOT,

other city agencies, and of course, federal regulators.

EDC manages the New York City Ferry, the East 23rd Street Seaplane Base, the Skyport Marina, and other agreements through private operators.

So can you go into a bit more detail about which aspects are controlled by EDC versus DOT, and where you see the largest gap in the city's authority today?

I guess I'll start with just the NYC Ferry portion, and then I'll let my colleagues talk a little bit more about the different assets.

So NYC Ferry, which was started coming up on 10 years ago, is a creature of EDC because EDC was able to

build the landings for which it has responsibility over a number of waterfront properties and the sort of like expertise on providing management on landings.

So we have a lot of that.

So the landings at which NYC Ferry operates, many of them EDC is managing directly.

Also, our ability to stand up the system in terms of

of the vessels and the operator was something that we were able to get done.

And so NYC Ferry is an operation that NYC Ferry manages, but it is a privately operated system that is subject to the rules and regulations that DOT has as some of its chartered responsibilities.

So I guess I'll turn to John just on the DOT part, and then we can talk about...

Good morning.

Good morning.

I'm John Regan, Executive Director of Security and Private Ferry Operations at New York City DOT Ferry Division.

Primarily, we operate the Staten Island Ferry, but in terms of what James is speaking about for licensing private ferry operations, an operator like Hornblower New York, who runs NYC Ferry for EDC,

they come to DOT annually for a private ferry operator license, and we license the route and landings that they run under.

So that is our primary responsibility with private ferries.

And I'm Anton Fredrickson at EDC, a leader of Ports, Waterfront, and Transportation Department.

As part of that, we have a public piers program.

So we manage a number of assets across the city to make available for these excursion vessels, but also the industrial working waterfront of the New York Harbor.

And those piers are managed by a private operator called DocNYC, also known as Billy Bay Marina Services.

And they manage this program centrally and provide a lot of the services, but also the checks and has been increasingly responsive to

potential complaints that we've received over time, and we work to strengthen that through our birthing licenses with DocNYC and the operators.