A Commuter Trip: NY Waterway Ferry Navigates Waters, Financial Tides

It’s a quarter past 6 a.m. on a frost-covered Thursday morning. Passengers sprint across the parking lot of the county’s Belford Ferry Terminal. The grounds are just barely visible in the half-light of the hour and bleary eyes of the early starter commuters who begin their workday on that NY Waterway boat ride from the Middletown dock to New York City.

Inside of the depot, the harried patrons hastily affix lids onto cups of coffee and retrieve bags with a streamlined, systematic style. They make for the rear door where the two ferries are docked. They’ve got their morning system down. They know the ferries depart promptly at 6:30 and there will be no favoritism or delays allowed.

NY Waterway Spokesman Patrick Smith, of Rubenstein Associates Inc., NY, gives a practical reason why these people push with such routine panache to make that ride: It’s simply the quickest commute into the city. “The ferry (takes) 38 minutes to Wall Street Pier 11, then another seven minutes to World Financial Center on Hudson River side of Lower Manhattan,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, the average morning rush hour drive time is 90 minutes to two hours.  Depending on the amount of passengers at each stop along NJ Transit’s daily route, the time from Middletown to Penn Station is roughly the same as the drive. Smith adds one wrinkle to that: “Add 20 minutes for a subway ride downtown.”

Travel by boat might now be termed the modern model of efficiency, yet among the three modes of long distance conveyance into the city, it is also, ironically, the oldest. That is a fact that has gone virtually unnoticed by the regular modern day patrons. They cite the convenience, quick transportation time, and relatively peaceful pace the ferry offers, and counter the same with recollections of long, crowded train rides with stops at every station.

As quickly as the passengers amass at the dockside to board and are gone, so too does the demeanor of the terminal change. Where there was just manic activity, now is a relative calm; at least until the boats return in roughly a half-hour’s time. Then the manic cycle begins again with another group of passengers. It has become a scene-stealer way of life at what used to be a tucked away Belford site at the foot of Main Street formerly meant only for and quiet reflection. The fishermen are still nearby, but so are the ferries and their commuter friends.

The convenience and solace of the ferry ride may be a priceless commodity, but to some, it’s just plain too pricey.

The round-trip ticket for the average passenger is $40, a financial turn-off for casual users such as Penny Sherman, a freelance court reporter who lives in Middletown. “Normally I take the Academy Bus, but if I’m (working at a court) down by the water, it’s a hop, skip and a jump (using the ferry). It’s just too expensive to use it all the time, though.”

Terminal manager Ted DeGuilmi recognizes the hurdle of cost but weighs that negative to the positives, and the differences of their service versus other options. “We were doing some studies with the trains and stuff, and the people who take the train are (paying) about $400-and-change, while we’re roughly a monthly $500-to-600,” he said. “But it’s one 40-minute trip compared to almost an hour-and-a-half, near two hours, with transfers, parking and such. It’s just a quality-of-life sort of commute.”

“If you figure out what your time is worth, is it worth five dollars an hour that you’ll save back-and-forth? It’s a different way of life, a better commute.”

Ferry Captain Mike Kahn has been working the boats for 24 years, with seven, in particular, devoted to the Belford run. He comes in contact with several regulars who use the service, and agrees with DeGuilmi’s assessment: “They’re very relaxed. It’s a very relaxed atmosphere, and a lot of people intermingle with each other. Some of them do their work, and others will hang in different classes of the boat. I’d say it’s a lot more relaxing than being on a train.”

There have long been boat captain stereotypes: that they don’t actively choose their profession as much as it has always been a part of them, in the blood, like a family trait. It is no different for Kahn. For him, no ‘a-ha moment’ was necessary when it came to deciding what he wanted to do with a career. “I was working on party boats, hanging around down in Belmar when I was nine years old, and it just stayed with me,” he said.

A more substantial problem for the ferry system was the economic downturn that directly affected the primary customer base — workers in the financial sector. In terms of whether there was a major drop-off, DiGuilmi admitted, “Yes, we were moving about 1,200 people a day at that point, where when I got here two-and-a-half years ago, we were moving about 750. Now we’re building it back up a little bit, into the mid-to-high 900’s, occasionally breaking a thousand (passengers). It’s coming back but, yeah, we took a big, heavy hit.”

The afternoon at the depot couldn’t be more different than the morning. The coffee kiosk is gated shut, and the light of the setting sun illuminates the wood-beam ceiling of the depot. The phenomenon of “morning minutes,” where time seems to fly twice as fast as normal, seems unthinkable now. It barely seems like the same place as it was only a handful of hours prior, at least until the patrons return home, and even at that, they are more relaxed having beaten the clock for another day. Now the only time left is theirs and not their employers’.

While unrelated to the Staten Island ferry system and their tragic accidents of 2003 and 2010, there was always a possibility of NY Waterway’s service being stifled by the sting of a relatability effect. DiGuilmi quickly pointed out one has no bearing on the other.

“We’re our own little community here and everybody watches out for everybody, and knows what it’s about here (in Belford),” he said. “I think they know it’s a different type of commute from the Staten Island ferry, which is just enormous. To an outsider’s perspective, they may have thought, ‘yeah that’s all the same company,’ thinking every ferry is connected in some way, which it’s not.

“But then, on the other end, our moving the people when 9/11 hit, we were the only (company) taking people off of the island.”

NY Waterway has helped with several crisis efforts, including transporting people not only during 9/11, but also the blackout of 2003 and the US Airways crash of flight 1549, dubbed “The Miracle on the Hudson.”  

“(When emergencies occur) we react very well,” he said. “The communication is constant. We have somebody that’s in charge of operations; we have people on the boats that contact us instantly. Everybody has radios and cell phones if, in that instant, it becomes necessary and there’s a chain-of-command if there’s an emergency. We have Robert Matticola, who’s in charge of Homeland Security, Alan Warren (director of NY Waterway’s) ferry operations. It depends on the level of the incident for where you’re going.”

As for the minor emergencies of boating during bad weather, Captain Kahn said, “It doesn’t really affect us that much. It’s pretty protected (inside the boat), and the biggest seas you get in here is about three-to-four feet. The boats are big enough to withstand it.”

The bottom line for the passengers of the Belford ferry line is that the service offers a smooth trip to and from the city. “Extreme convenience,” is what one commuter coming home, who would only identify himself as Jerry, told Patch. “It’s a wonderful way to ride as far as back-and-forth commuting. I’ve ridden by train, by car, and yes, it’s expensive … but this type of (commuter) life, it’s a good life. Someone takes care of you (on the boat), you don’t have to hit every stop along the way, and it’s convenient because I work down at the World Trade Center. “It’s an adventure, and everybody on it is good people.”