NYC Ferry to Rockaways gets a service boost — and price hike

It’ll be a little easier to ride a boat to the beach in New York City this summer, but the privilege will cost you extra.

NYC Ferry officials on Wednesday said they plan to expand a popular program that allows riders to pay more to reserve a seat to and from the Rockaways. Those trips are usually packed to the gills with beachgoers on summer weekends.

This year, riders can pay $12 to secure a seat on the “Rockaway Rocket" to the peninsula from north Brooklyn and Long Island City, according to the city's Economic Development Corporation, which runs the ferry service. The same price applies for tickets on the “Rockaway Reserve,” which reserves half of the seats on boats to and from Wall Street for people who book a ticket ahead of time.

The $12 ticket is a hike from the $10 the ferry charged last summer and is much higher than the $4.50 base fee for all other ferry trips. The Rockaway Reserve option begins Memorial Day weekend and runs through Sept. 7.

The ferry system will add a dedicated boat to operate the trips on the Rockaway Rocket route, which begins service on Fourth of July weekend, two weeks earlier than last year.

EDC officials said that after Memorial Day, weekday-afternoon service on the regular Rockaway route will increase by 45% compared to the rest of the year.

“We have expanded the fleet, built larger vessels and now we run service, in the weekend peaks, every 35 minutes or so out to the beach,” said NYC Ferry Executive Director James Wong.

The EDC said the return of the ferry trips with direct service and reserved seating comes after years of increasing ridership on the 38-boat fleet.

The NYC Ferry service is heavily subsidized by taxpayer dollars, but EDC officials published a new report on Wednesday that argued it’s worth the money because thousands of riders buoy the economies of beach communities.

The report said more than 167,000 people took the ferry to the Rockaways last summer. It estimated businesses in the Rockaways and Coney Island raked in around $80 million in consumer spending last summer.

Melissa Pumphrey,  senior vice president of economic research and policy for the Economic Development Corporation, said about a quarter of the estimated 11.6 million visitors to city beaches last year were tourists.

“ Those tourists are spending $80 million visiting city beaches — supporting 1,200 seasonal jobs and 1,200 small businesses in beach neighborhoods across the city,” she said.

Correction: NYC Ferry Executive Director James Wong amended his comment to accurately reflect the frequency of Rockaway service. He clarified ferries will run every 35 minutes during weekend peak periods.